Soul Calibur II: The Odyssey
by Jastul
Summary: Chapter 6 up! The Battle of Venice is fought. Please R6R!
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters of Soul Calibur, I'm only using them to have some fun

Author's note: okay here's a little something that I thought of while I had nothing to do, it's also my first story so don't be too harsh on me:

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Prologue

Countless legends surround a sword known as Soul Edge. A weapon that has existed before the human kind could remember. A weapon that possesses history yet holds on point of origin. Though as mysterious and foreshadowing as the blade is for several centuries, a great number of warriors and souls have attempted to take it for their own. And even as often as these warriors who managed to attain such a feat fall into the darkness of their own hearts, the darkness of Soul Edge.

Some claim it was the ultimate weapon. A powerful weapon that can bisect mountains, and cut the water of the seas. Others refer to it as the Sword of Heroes. A phantom sword with immeasurable power of the spirits, a blade that gives unlimited courage. Also called the key to eternal youth. A blade which holds the power to prevent the aging of a warrior. Also called a treasure without equal. Priests believe it is a panacea to cure all illness. There are even those who consider it the Sword of Salvation. A weapon that if possessed and put to good use can save a soul from damnation.

Although no one could ever be certain of the sword's whereabouts or true identity, various rumors and folklore spread across the world. In reality, Soul Edge was comprised of twin blades that fed on human souls. The male and female Soul Edge. In the early half of the 16th century they fell into the hands of a pirate called Cervantes De Leon. As a result he gained horrible power and moved on to become the most powerful swordsman on the face of the planet. Twenty years later, he emerged again, called out by the blade's lust for souls. As a result several came out to fight for the blades.

This was in the latter half of the 16th century while many searched for the blades ended up going home as they were all lost along the way. However, a warrior on a divine mission for the ancient god of forge successfully shattered one of the evil blades. However this badly injured the maiden and Cervantes moved to strike her down. Fortunately a demon huntress from Japan appeared to save her and defeat Cervantes. Leaving the sword and its master alone as she dragged the maiden home.

Not long after Cervantes blood was spilled upon the earth a young knight who had been traveling with the maiden appeared. He intended now to simply take up the sword, and his belief it was the key to salvation would rid him of his sins. This didn't work to how it was expected as the sword itself seemed to come to life and attack! However, the knight defeated this demon. It was at this time that the sword finally passed on to somebody whose heart wasn't aimed toward power or victory, only to the redemption of his long lost soul.

However, instead of redemption, tragedy struck this soul. Instead of healing him of his sins it possessed him, the blade dug into his soul digging out the darkest part of the young knight and bringing it into reality. The blade transformed into a large sword to fit its new master's skill. It was at this point that it became perfectly obvious, the phantom sword Soul Edge was forged from darkness and evil. And because of this soul's balance between light and darkness it made it all the simpler for Soul Edge to take him over. As now the power of Soul Edge was mostly its own not needing to be shared with its sister sword.

As if the birth of this new monster wasn't enough, the maiden's shattering of the Soul Blade produced the opposite effect of what was intended. The balance of power between the swords was destroyed, and the evil of the blades spiraled out of control. Its malevolent energy diffused into the sky in a form of eerie light. The phenomenon, which later became known as the Evil Seed, scarred the world with its evil legacy. Shards of the first Soul Edge flew all over the world while the hilt of the sword was nowhere to be found. The Evil Seed affected several other warriors that were forced to join the fight.

For three years the knight that had been taken into the dark control of the Soul Edge went on countless killing sprees with an army of berserkers for nearly three years until it all came to a close. The true reason was unknown to why this occurred, but there was then four years of peace to the world.

Only a few knew that four years before, a spirit sword named Soul Calibur appeared from the East, as if to answer the call of the raging Soul Edge. No one witnessed the final battle to the death where Soul Edge and its master were defeated. The Soul Edge's outer shell was shattered by the Soul Calibur and the balance of power between it and Soul Blade was restored allowing both blades to return to their original states. Although the blades by now have returned to their former power the shattered shards have spread across the world bringing a new darkness.

Most people were oblivious to the fact that the peace that followed was the result of this battle, and the spirit sword's existence remained a mystery to the world.

Unfortunately, the peace was merely a façade. The evil blade has begun spreading its influence, quietly yet surely, throughout the world once again. People unwittingly transported the sword to every corner of the world in the form of metal shards.

These pieces of Soul Edge, still embodied evil powers. With Soul Calibur once again locked away in its former state, it is only a matter of time before the evil sword's dark powers infected the entire world.

And even unknown to those who now seek the shards and the sword for their own reason a malevolent force is being summoned by the shards. The immortal embodiment of Soul Edge, that the knight faced looks forward to his day, when he can come into the world once again.

However they have over looked a dark part of the legend of the Soul Swords. While the legends indeed say that a blade will come from the east to defeat the Soul Edge it spoke of a third sword being forged through the remains of the sibling swords. The only question that remains is who will get to the shards first.

The future is unpredictable at this point, as the world has now begun to see the Soul Edge's master and his followers cut a path of destruction through the wilderness once again. While many seek the Soul Edge for different reasons they must somehow realize the truth and end its evil before humanity is lost.


	2. Another Typical night

Hey! I'm back! Hope you all like this. Due to some wierd cause however, I cannot access the second and third chapter of this story, so this is basically from what I remember those were and what I have off the top of my head. So here it is! again. The first original chapter of Soul Calibur 2: The Odyssey. Enjoy! (if you can)

**Chapter 1:**

**Another Typical Night**

It was a night like any other in this typical French port, moonlight lit the area, the stars were shinning, the water was calm, and there was not a sound but the occaisional whisper of the winds. The harbor was calm, the boats and ships were safely tied to the docks and not a soul was within sight. Except for those who borded the majestic ship _Le Messager de L'Espoir, _the ship that had once belonged to the prominent French aristocrat and master fencer Raphael Sörel, son of Sebastián and Flavie Sörel, brother of the three-time European fencing champion León Sörel, it was allegedly now a pirate's ship, after it was "comandeered" by the infamous japanese pirate from the Ryu Kyu region Maxi Teitsuro. Who had , supposedly on orders from the french bureaucrats, attacked the ship, kidnapped the owner, thrown all the crew to their deaths at sea, sent his own ship to the bottom of the ocean and taken _Le Messager de L'Espoir _as his own.

Truth was, Teitsuro had put the defeated crew in boats and added M. Sörel to his own particular crew (who joined of his own free will), though he did sink his own ship and taken _Le Messager _for his own. But Maxi Teitsuro wasn't the cruel being he was told to be, he was actually a man that fought for what he believed right and supported those he loved. That's why he had asked M: Sörel to join his crew, because they were both after a common goal, which they both thought to be of great importance: the destruccion of the evil blade Soul Edge.

Now, the unlikeley crew of _Le Messager de L'Espoir_, rested on this peaceful night, most of them were on deck looking at the stars in quiet meditation. The ship harbor the ship was docked in, had a half-moon shape, gainning elevation as the curvature progressed until it turned into a thirty feet high clif that had a lighthouse perched on its outermost corner and quite a few rocks popping out of the water, foreboding certain death to those who fell from the cliff.

It was against the lighthouse's walls, that a dark, cloaked figure leaned comfortably with its arms crossed. Its gaze covered the entire harbor, but rested on the previously described ship. That was its main target, he could feel the evil energy he was after emanate from there. He could almost smell its foul pressence in the air, and it reeked.

After making sure that none of those on deck even noticed his pressence, the figure reached inside the cloak and removed a particular gadjet, it had the shape of a cross-bow, but without the bow or the arrow, instead, it had a triangular arrow-head that was attached to a chain; that chain went inside the device's structure neatly packed. The figure looked once more at the calm night before letting out a resignated sigh, he hated to have to perturb such a peaceful moment, especially wih what was probably going to be the clash of blades and many an injury.

He took aim at the ship's main mastil, which was barely within range of his strange weapon and without previous notice, he exploded into a burst of speed towards the edge of the cliff and jumped into what looked like certain death, but when he was sure he had his aim right, he pulled the trigger of his gadget and the arrow-head sprung from its resting place, followed by the chain. The arrow-head found its mark in the center of the ship's main mastil and expanded slightly. With another pull of the trigger, the chain retracted into its sheet, janking the figure with it.

When the chain had fully returned to its original place, the arrow-head returned to its original size and became quite loose, since the hole it was in was made for something bigger now. By this time, the figure had already come into contact with the mastil and jumped from it. He nimbly jumped to one of the ship's lesser sails while putting away the strange device and drawing a knife with strange carbings on the blade. He dug the blade inte the sail and let gravity do the rest.

He quickly came into contact with the floor and returned the knife to its place inside the cloak. Where he was met by the crew of Le Messeger: Greece's most prominent female warriors, the Alexandria sisters, the Ling-Shu monk Kilik, the former Chinese soldier Choi Xianghua and the wind priestess from the wind village, Talim. All of them had their weapons at ready.

"Who are you and what do you want with us?" demanded immediately Sophitia Alexandria, older of the two sisters and apparent leader of the group.

"From you I seek nothing, but the shards of the evil blade you call Soul Edge" answered the figure in a soft voice. In that moment the door that led to the inside of the ship and from there came the rest of the crew: the captain Maxi, the owner Raphael Sörel, a student from the Seung dojo, Hong Yunsung -or Yunsung as most people called him-, and the monk from the Ling-Shu temple Kilik, with their weapons at ready too, they had been playing cards inside the ship and heard the noise from above, so they decide to go check it.

"Oh yeah? Well, you'll have to go past us to get them" replied in an arrogant tone Raphael, hoping that the number difference would scare off the mysterious being.

"Very well, as you wish." Responded the figure. His hand then went to one of the folds of the cape just to throw it towards the warriors, who had moved into a close group. This took them off guard as the cape extendend like a curtain in front of them, blocking their view from their attacker to be. But as soon as the cape extended, a barrage of arrows came flying through it towards the warriors, most of them ducked, but Maxi, was unfortunate enough to get caught by the aorrows, lucklily for him, however, none of them hit him squarely, they all just went through his clothes giving him minors scratches. But the arrow's strength was so great that they pulled him towards one of the ship's wall and pinned him to it, and when he made contact with t, his head hit the wood hard and he was knocked out.

The warriors barely had time to worry about their friend, as the intruder stepped over the cape and attacked them while wielding a huge battle hammer, they also noticed that his ears were strangely large and pointy, like an elf.

But before they could wonder about the intruder's race, they had to worry about defeating him. First, he went towards Raphael, whom he caught off guard square in the head and knocked him out. Then he threw the hammer to the first person's head within sight, which turend out to be Cassandra, the younger of the Alexandria sisters, who was left unconcious by the blow. He then drew a pink bladed sword and a red shield with a mirror-like silver plating on the front and turned to his next oponent in line: Yunsung. The Korean swordsman quickly reacted and crossed blades with the intruder.

Kilik took this moment as his cue and jumped towards the intruder, staff held high to be brought in a swift motion. But in the last second the intruder sidespped and the staff hit Yunsung square in the head and knocked him out in the process. The monk, however, didn't have time to lament his mistake as he was caught in the head with the flat side of the intruder's blade and also being taken out for some time.

As he turned around, the attacking swordsman had to dodge under the blade of Xianghua, he then grabbed her by the arm and launched her towards the boat's railing to which she barely managed to hold on to, escaping a very unpleasant fall into the harbor's cold water.

"I see this isn't the first time you fight multiple opponents at the same time" said Sophitia, who was flanked by Talim with her sword and shield at the ready. "But lets see how are you when you have lost the element of surprise." And at that moment Talim put away her strange weapons and rushed to the railing to which Xianghua was holding on to, obviously in an atempt to help her while Sophitia fought this enemy. The intruder saw this as another opportunity and quickly put away his blade and reached into his belt to draw a boomerang, which he hurled at the prestess's feet while running towards her.

By the time Talim saw the weapon coming at her it was too late, she was hit on her right foot by the boomerang -which then turned back the way it came towards its owner as most boomerangs do when thrown correctly- and started to fall. However, she did not touch the floor, as the intruder had already caugh up with her, he then turned to Sophita and used Talim as a human shield. He put away the boomerang which he had cought while running and drew once againd the strange knife and pressed it to the pirestess's neck.

"Give me the shards or I'll kill her!" demanded the stranger. Sophitia was shocked at the speed and skill this opponent was showing and tried to think as fast as she could. Her shock didn't diminish, however, as she looked around the ship while thinking what to do and saw her friends and companions lying on the floor or hanging for dear life on the ship's railing.

She didn't need to finish thinking as a voice came from behind the intruder and Talim "Not if I can help it!" they all turned around to see Yunsung flying through the air with his blade held high and ready to strike down his enemy.

But as soon as he saw him, the swordsman took the knife off Talim's kneck and projected her towards Yunsung. He caught the youth in mid air and both of them fell to the ship's floor with a thud.

_This is going to be much harder than I thought _said Sophitia to herself

"Do I need to defeat you too, or will you surrender the shards of Soul Edge to me?" asked the stranger.

"Never!"answered Sophitia with confidence. "You speak of the Soul Edge as if it was just a weapon, but you can't even fathom its power"

"Oh, I believe I can" replied the intruder with a smile. "So, since you don't seem to be near relinquishing the blade, I think I'm going to have to defeat you to get it."

"Ja! If you even come close to defeating me, then I'll give you the shards personally." Responded Sophitia arrogantly to xianghua's dismay, who was climbing back into the ship.

And with that the greek warrior quickly rushed towards her enemy. Their blades clashed with intensity on the ship's front side and entered the complex, beautiful and deadly dance known as a sword fight. They both moved swiftly and with unmatched intensity, but it wasn't before long that the downed warriors quickly recovered and surrounded the combatants, more importantly, their attacker.

The intruder realized this and decided it was time to end this. He locked his blade with the greek's and sidestepped to kick her in the gut and send her to the floor. But instead of going for the kill, he quickly sheeted his sword and put away his shield and did something very unusual: he took both of his hands to his right hip, moved his arms in a circular motion in front of him and punched the ship's floor with his left hand.

When his hand touched the floor a fire ball came out of it and expanded quickly but it didn't burn its creator, instead it traveled fast along the ship towards the warriors, which quickly ran towards the other side of the ship in a thight group.

But, as quickly as it came, it faded right before touching them, leaving them all in awe. Before they could know what was going on, however, they heard from behind them the last thing they expected: clapping. They all turned arround to look at their attacker leaning comfortably against the ship's railing and clapping at them with a rather amused look in his face, but if they had seen their faces at the moment they would have been amused too.

"Congratulations ladys and gentlemen! You have proved to me that you are worthy of my aid and that it wasn't sheer luck that brought you to this point!" he anounced triumphant.

Kilik was the first one to recover from the impresion and asked "What the hell is going on? And what do you mean by that?"

Amused, the swordsman replied "Well, I was just testing you, to see your intentions, how good you were at fighting, and since you have proved that you are not evil, I offer my help to you, if you will have me."

"And what if we won't? Are you going to attack us and take the pieces from us? Your sneak attacks won't work again and you are greatly outnumbered." Responded Yunsung arrogantly.

"And what if you shut up for once and let the big boys do the talking, Hong?" cutRaphael, who had a scarlet line trailing from his brow, where he had been hit with the hammer, without counting the massive headache he was suffering; Yunsung only shrugged his shoulders and muttered something like "look who's the little boy." he kept quiet, however.

"Now, with all the silly interruptions out of the way, (Yunsung huffed at this) what was that about knowing our intentions?"resumed Raphael.

"Well, the best way to know people's character is by fighting them, and you all didnt' seem evil to me on our little brawl." Replied the former attacker.

"But, give us one good reason to trust that you won't steal the Soul Edge pieces from us and kill us in our sleep if we take you in." Demanded Xianghua.

"Well, like I said, the best way to know someone is by fighting him, did I seem like someone who would do that right now?" asked the intruder. After some time, they all realized that what he just said was true, even though he did sneek attacked them, he hadn't killed any of them when he had the chance which was more than any could say of most of the things thay had faced.

"Well, then, we'll take you in only if you tell us your name and why are you searching the pieces of Soul Edge." Responded Kilik after pondering the situation.

"Well, my name, is Link, and as to why I search the Soul Edge, it has caused so much suffering to my people that destruction it is the only thing I want for it." Responded the elf.

The warriors took this as a very good reason, since it was this same reason what moved most of them. As for the name, well, as unusual as it was, maybe he just didn't want to give his real name.

"Well, Link, that seems good enough, I will take you to your quarters in this ship. Do you have any other belonings somewhere else, say a cap nearby?" asked Raphael.

"Yes, but I'll colect them in the morning and bring them back." Responded Link.

"Very well, let us go to bed then" asnwered Raphael. But they all then heard a groan and turned around to see that Maxi, still pinned to the wall by the arrows was coming to. "Just help us get him down from the wall."

And with that, they all went to their rooms inside the ship to have seome sleep, all except Raphael and Link, who were taking Maxi down from the wall. After that, Link took the arrows and put them with the rest of the in his quiver and followed the French man to his new room. Maxi had a hard time believing the story of what had happened while he was unconcious, but in the end he believed it and went to bed.

It was a night like any other in this typical French port, moonlight lit the area, the stars were shinning, the water was calm, and there was not a sound but the occaisional whisper of the winds.

There you go! How was it? Good? Bad? Or should I erase that from memory and throw myself into a cliff? Anyway, review and tell me what your thoughts are!

**Yours truly:  
Jastul**


	3. The Ivy's Poison

Hello everybody!

I'm finally back with another chapter, thanks to all those who reviewed and sorry for taking so long to update, I would like to give you a complete explanation of why I haven't been able to but I know you all don't really care much.

I know most of you think that I made Link seem too powerful, skilled and simply the world's greatest bad-ass in the last chapter. But that was only for that chapter, I promise that from now on he will be on a more equal level with the rest of the warriors and that it won't happen again, at least not anytime soon and probably not to Link (Yes, you heard me! someone else will have a chance to look like a bad-ass for an entire chapter!)

Thanks to all of those who reviewed and those who didn't please do this time! I love your commentaries on my story and how it can be better (flames accepted to a moderate degree)

And now to your reviews:

**_Crimson-88_**: thanks a lot, I hope this next chapter is more to your liking, I know it's too long and starts out really dull, but I have some surprises planned for you and everyone else who reads.

**_Sacharia_**: Thanks! Hope you like this one!

**_Shadow Rave_**: If you think a blow to the head would be fatal, you have obviously never watched or any matches from ECW and WWE/WWF's golden days. If you have, I think you should know better, and if you haven't and have no problems with graphical violence, I suggest you do. Anyway, thanks for reviewing!

And to all of those who didn't review: Please! Even if it is just a three word sentence like "this fic sucks" or "great job dude!" I'll take any of those, and it only takes you like half a minute to write that. So please, R&R!

WARNING: The makers of TAG body spray... wait a minute, wrong wrong warning; This chapter will start out really slow, but I promise it gets better!

Yours truly:

Jastul

**The Ivy's poison**

It was another typical morning in this typical French port, the sun was shinning and the birds chirping, but only those on board of _Le_ _Messeger de L'Espoir _knew anything about the battle that had been fought on the ship's deck not more than twelve hours ago.

When morning came, all the fighters involved in the previously mentioned battle (even the attacker) met at the ship's dinning room. It was just a long room that took up most of that level of the ship with a small door that led to the ship's kitchen. It was filled with and equally large table on its center with enough chairs to sit a small army. But, of course, not even half of it was used by the current crew.

Currently, the entire crew was at the table, having breakfast in their usual merry manner. Most of the attention, though, was directed to the newcomer of the group: Link, the elven swordsman that had somehow managed to single-handedly beat some of the world's finest warriors, present, past or future.

"So, Link" started Cassandra "Where are you from? Because it is obvious by your sole appearance that you're not from around here... and by here I mean the world of humans."

"Well, I come from Hyrule" responded the young elf. "And you're right; it is not within the limits of your world."

"Then how did you managed to come to our plane." Quickly inquired Raphael, showing his natural distrust from people learned in the French aristocracy.

"Well, you might not know this, but the blade you know as Soul Edge was originally forged in my world –where it was called Evil's Soul- by the evil sorcerer Agahnim, who poured his great evil and most of his power and knowledge into it.

He used the sword for his evil purposes. But, he was defeated in mortal combat by the greatest Hylian knight in history (or at least I think he is, although many think I took his place about four years ago, but that's another story) who then sealed him away, shattered the sword, and sealed it into another realm, where the shards were scattered and hidden.

But there was a primitive tribe of beings that bore some resemblance to us. These beings, at that time were little more than animals, and as such, were sensitive to the blade's luring power -as they still are- and fell easily under its great powers. You obviously know who I'm talking about."

"Yes." Answered Sophitia. "It was humans who found the blade."

"Exactly, your primitive ancestors found the blade, and with its power and knowledge, became the dominant species on this planet. But, the blade slowly but surely corrupted humans to such a degree, that they were –and still are- susceptible to every form of evil, not only the blade's.

From there, the blade spent a millennia switching from kingdom to kingdom, bringing power and glory with it. But, it also brought destruction; every great civilization that took its powers from the blade was doomed to being attacked time after time until another kingdom seized the blade and its former house fell into decay, malaise, and ultimately destruction." After this, Link fell silent, waiting for everyone to take all this in.

"But that still doesn't explain why you are here." Stated Kilik.

"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Link. "I almost forgot! Well, because it was used by so many to gain so much power, the blade was drained of a great deal of power and rendered almost useless, only able to go on due to all the souls that had died in the wars led by its empires.

But then, a man in my world, the direct descendant from Agahnim, found a way to bring the sword a short while after he was exiled from our land. And when the blade's ancient powers mingled with his dark and evil magic, it twisted him into some strange being: it turned him into the chimera known in my world as Ganon and raked chaos upon Hyrule.

Ganon quickly gained power with the sword's help and became something short of a God. Some said that he sold his soul the devil in exchange for his powers, which isn't far from the truth. But, in truth, he had mixed his essence with that of the blade to such degree that one's faith was bound to the others. So he is basically immortal unless the blade is destroyed.

One after one, the descendants of the great Hero came forth to face to evil Ganon and seal him back into the evil realm where he had been vanished to. But no matter what, he reincarnated and returned to our world. Until one of the knights decided to seal the blade back to where the hero had sent it, thinking that that would be the solutions, as it had worked with Agahnim before Ganon.

But that proved to be fatal, as it was found by a man you have surely heard of; the dread pirate Cervantes de Leon." At this, everyone who had met the pirate shivered at the memory of such terrible adversary.

"Cervantes was eventually defeated, but the Soul Edge wasn't since, when Cervantes came into contact with the blade, he split its powers into three blades. But the rip went deep into the blade's core; so deep that it actually released enough energy to open the portal back to our world and brought the third blade with it.

But the third blade didn't come back alone. No, it brought with it Ganon, who had also been released from his prison by the rupture created from separating something as powerful as the Soul Edge. And, as the next one in the great Hero's line, it was my duty to seal Ganon away." He paused after this, wanting all of them to take in what he had just said.

"So, did you?" asked Yunsung, rather sarcastically.

"And it wasn't easy at all, my friend" responded Link without taking heed of the Korean's sarcasm. "I had to travel several times up and down the stream of time, slay entire hoards of demons, make my way across magical labyrinths known as temples and awaken their respective sages, save half a dozen of races from extinction, help all the people in distress I found, rescue two princesses (twice) and _then_ engage in a fight to the death with the greatest sorcerer my land has ever seen. Without mentioning that I had my land's future on my back and the odds were completely against me."

"Well, you seem to have a lot of experience in fighting the Soul Edge and more than a few good reasons to do so." Understated Raphael. "It would be an honor for us to have you amongst our crew, Link. By the way, do you people in your world refer to you by any kind of title or something like that?"

"Well, they mostly call me the Hero of Time, since I traveled through time to save my land, but I don't really like it. I grew up as a child from the forest and desire little. So just call me Link."

"How about a family name?" inquired Sophitia.

"If the research I made on my bloodline is true, then my family name is Rey-hûl. But in that same research, it showed that the name given to me by my parents is actually Gaeden, which is not how I wish to be known as. But if you indeed need to know, everyone in my land calls me Master due to my skill with the sword; so I think that Link Masters will do."

"Well, then, I think it shall" answered Raphael.

After a moment of eating in silence, Talim decided to break the ice. "So, what are we doing today?"

"Well, me, Sophitia, Kilik and Xianghua have to go meet with a potential ally and Maxi has offered to stay and take care of the ship. So the rest of you youngsters can go and have fun around town for today." Raphael responded, giving Link a cautious look.

"Don't worry, I'll be careful not to let anybody let my true identity." Link said, disregarding the French man's glance. "Remember that I have been able to go undetected by all the civilians that I have encountered in this city, and every other one I have been to during the five months since I arrived to this world."

That seemed enough to calm the rest of the crew and everybody went their separate ways. Some stayed to finish their meal, others, like Sophitia, Kilik, Raphael and Xianghua to attend to other manners while Yunsung, Talim and Link decided to go visit the town market and see if they could find anything of interest.

They all decided to take their weapons as a measure of safety in case things got nasty. Talim, like Yunsung, carried her elbow blades on her belt while Link carried his shield and sword (together with the rest of his weapons) underneath the cloak he used to hide his pointy, elfish ears.

So the three young warriors headed for the town market. Talim seemed quite curious about Link, his land, his adventures, and basically, him. Yunsung, on the other side, seemed annoyed at the elf's presence and muttered crude, obscure comments about anything he could and often mocked Link or anything relating him in Korean so neither Talim or Link knew what he was saying.

It was while walking through one of the market's busy streets, that Link felt a presence much similar to Soul Edge's, yet it wasn't quite the same. He looked for the source of that strange energy with his eyes, which landed on a hooded figure, a woman. She moved in a sadistic kind of way, but, most importantly, like a warrior. Then, after focusing on that woman, Link traced the strange power to her waist line, to be more precise, her left hip. On that side, he could notice a long, pointy object –the sheath of a sword, this couldn't be good.

So, our elven pal followed that mysterious woman throughout the town, she led him to a beach hidden on the opposite side of the harbor to which their ship was docked. On the top of the cliff he could see the lighthouse from which he had made his suicidal jump less than twelve hours ago. On the cliff's wall he could see the entrance to a cave which had an ominous feeling about it. By that time, the elf was about fifty meters behind the woman and almost certain that she would lead him inside the cave.

Instead, the woman just stopped dead on her tracks and yelled without turning back.

"What do you want from me?" it wasn't a question, it was a request. Resigned, Link decided that this woman was dangerous, vicious, and definitely not one to play dumb with. So, with a sigh, he went straight to the point

"Tell me, what is that energy that is coming from your sword?" Link demanded in return.

"You mean my Ivy blade?" asked the woman while turning around and lowering the hood of her cape. "It is the energy of the only living sword made by man."

A living blade, just what he needed, another piece of metal that not only could kill him, it could also _think_ of how to do so. And if her eyes were something to judge her by, this woman had seen most death and blood in her life than some Hylian knights he had met and was ready to see even more, even if it was she who caused it.

This woman was obviously an enemy for him and his cause, so he drew his sword and shield while the mysterious woman drew her own blade: it wasn't too big; about four fingers wide and a foot long, that wasn't good since soul blades –especially _living_ blades- were extremely good for offense while short blades allowed fast movements and were good for defense and/or assassination … definitely not good at all.

"Well, well, looks like we have a lively one here" The woman said in a sarcastic, arrogant tone before entering a relaxed stance "I will love to beat such a handsome man as yourself and make you my slave" she said this wile liking her lips hungrily.

Disgusted at the woman's idea, Link decided to circle her and study her stance. It was the oddest one he had seen: back straight, face up; the legs were comfortably open with the left leg slightly forward and the right arm together with the blade resting with ease on the right thigh while the left hand was on its respective hip.

After careful study of his opponent, Link decided that she would probably be slow to defend against a quick attack directed to her left shoulder. The only thing that made him hesitate to strike were the mysterious powers from her blade. He did not have even the faintest idea of what a sword that reeked of soul edge's magic could possible do, especially one of such odd construction.

But seeing that his opponent was not about to move anytime soon, he decided to go for his first plan of action: attack recklessly at the first weak spot he found; just like the old times.

The elf exploded in a sudden burst of speed towards his opponent and raised his sword to deliver a vertical strike but reversed it in the last second and turned around into a roundhouse slash towards his opponent's unprotected back and left shoulder.

"Hey Yunsung, where's Link?" asked a puzzled Talim to his young companion. She had just noticed the elf's disappearance, being too busy looking at some goods brought from the eastern continent that had recently been discovered such as gold, jewels and other precious materials.

After looking around the street, he responded. "Well, that's a very good question." He and Cassandra hadn't noticed Link's disappearance either. "We better go find him before he gets in trouble and compromises our mission."

"Why do you think he will do something like that?" Asked Talim offended in Link's place.

"Well, maybe because he can be easily mistaken by a demon in this lands, or because he is new to our world, probably doesn't speak any French at all, and maybe because I don't trust him." While Yunsung said all these things, Talim just got angrier and angrier.

"Why are you like that Yunsung? Since we came out to the market this morning you have done nothing but bad mouth him the entire time! Yes, I may not speak fluent Korean but I know how to insult someone I ten languages and right know I am thinking of something for you in seven of them! So I suggest that you start being more attentive to him, even if you don't like him! Because even if you don't like him, he is our ally and probably going to be around us for a long time

Besides, I do not recall _you_ knowing any French at all either! And just so you know, he's been around this world for five months and hasn't gotten into any identity problems. _You, _on the other side, used to get in trouble every time at you dojo and couldn't spend a day without being scolded by your master…"

"I've told you that most of those times it wasn't my fault!"

"Maybe it wasn't _every time_, but there must be a reason why people always looked at you when something bad happened! And, if he did get into any trouble, he is good enough of a swordsman to fend off most common enemies." By this point, Talim was almost screaming and her face was completely red. Yunsung thanked the great noise surrounding them otherwise everyone would have heard Talim yelling at him in the middle of the public place. Meanwhile, the Athenian maid watched this discussion with great amusement

After much hesitation as to what to do, the embarrassed Korean just said "Lets go find that elf before he gets too far away." Talim, who was shocked at her own reaction, complied and followed Yunsung through the busy streets of the marketplace.

Link expected his attack to connect, but when his sword was about to hit his opponent's back, it clashed into something that stopped it dead in its tracks. To his surprise, it was the strange blade his opponent wielded, only this time it was segmented into different pieces which were joined by a wire of sorts that coursed through the middle of the tiny blades while the woman hadn't even flinched and stayed firmly in her place.

A snake sword, if his knowledge in alchemy was correct. Its creation, one of the most difficult tasks an alchemist could undertake, but if done right, it was a force to be reckoned with and stayed loyal to its master until the blade or creator was destroyed. That meant two things: first, his opponent was an alchemist and a very good one at that; and second, her sword could basically attack him from any direction at any time and even wrap itself around his body or sword, which usually led to excruciating pain.

And in fact it did, right after stopping the blow, the serpent sword this woman called an ivy blade slithered around his sword's blade and then pulled it away from his hand and threw it away. Not a good sign for Link.

While his sword was still flying through the air, the strange woman turned around, her sword returned to its regular form and she turned around to slash at his neck. The elf dodged underneath the blow and came up with a right-handed uppercut to her chin and she was hit square by his shield.

While she stumbled back, Link made a dash for his sword, which had landed about twenty meters away from him.

"Oh no you don't!" yelled out his opponent and stabbed at him. The ivy blade split again and the pieces flew at him in a straight line. Link barely made it in time to draw his sword and sidestep the blow, which was directed to his heart. The blade kept on though, and dug itself on the sand.

Link took this as his cue to act and stepped on the whip-turned sword and ran along its blade. When he was three meters away from his enemy, he jumped high into the air to come down with a vertical slash that would have split her in two had she not stepped aside.

Link's sword buried in the sand and the woman, after recovering from his opponent's impressive maneuver, retaliated with a vertical slash of her own, which was blocked by the shield. After this quick exchange, both combatants stepped back and examined each other closely.

"Well, I guess formalities are in order." Said Link. This surprised the woman a little, since he was speaking so calmly. "My name is Link Masters, but you can just call me Link, and before we proceed, let me take off my cloak, so I can move easier." And he took off his hood and cloak, from under which came a green hat, tunic, leather boots and gloves and a white, mail of armor and then threw away the garment.

With a small laugh, the woman started taking off her own cloak, to reveal a voluptuous body and a very provocative and indiscrete leather outfit that made Link blush and she also threw her cloak to the ground "Well Link, my name is Isabella Valentine, but you can call me Ivy, and it will be a pleasure to kill someone as skilled as yourself."

"I am honored madam. May the best one win."

"I am planning to, sweetheart."

And with that they resumed their fight, Link went to his traditional stance, while Ivy kneeled and dug her sword into the ground. This puzzled Link, but when he saw the blade segmenting again, he jumped to his right. A fraction of a second later, the ivy blade was going through the place where Link's stomach had been.

'Damn it! This is going to be much harder than I thought. She is obviously tricky and ruthless. Man, I love fighting people I may not be able to beat!'

Link ran towards Ivy while her sword was still inside the earth, but the ivy blade turned around and stabbed at him, which forced Link to stop and summersault backwards to dodge the blow. As he was in the mid air, he looked up to see his opponent. Ivy was already pulling back on her sword and was ready to strike at him.

Link landed like a cat in the sand and again was forced into defensive by Ivy, who was her sword as a whip this time. He felt a slight pain on his cheek but took no heed to it; he had been lucky this time, if he took a little longer it would have been his neck which would have suffered the consequences.

Ivy didn't give her opponent time to rest, as she lashed at him with fury using her whip-like weapon. Some of her blows were dodged, others deflected by the blade or shield. Link decided it was time to try a new approach, so he put away his sword while dodging or blocking the incoming attacks. He then used his free hand to dig inside one of the bags on his belt and drew a black sphere with a string coming out of it. He used some magic to light the fuse on and then threw it at Ivy, who was too busy attacking him to notice what he was doing.

When the little sphere was in mid-air, Ivy noticed it and tried to destroy it, however, it was too late. As she hit it with her whip, the bomb exploded and the sonic boom it created hit her and sent her to the ground.

_Darunia, thank you for those pocket bombs!_ Link thought to himself while celebrating his small triumph. But that was a short lived victory as he felt the impact created by the explosion hit him too and send him to the ground. _Crap, I forgot those were powerful! _These thoughts filled Link's mind as he struggled back to his feet. It took him a while to get up and by the time he got up to his feet Isabella was up too, but she had also been hurt by the explosion.

"You know, I'm getting really aggravated" Said Isabella in a tone that sent chills down Link's spine.

With one swift motion, she turned her sword into a whip and lashed at Link, he quickly jumped to his right but had no time to react as another whiplash put him in the defensive as he rolled to his right to dodge the many attacks from Ivy. He soon was forced to change from rolling to running in order to avoid getting drilled by the Ivy Blade but his efforts were in vain as one of Ivy's blows struck him in the back of his left leg.

When Ivy saw Link fall down, she retracted her blade and walked slowly towards him, when she was five feet away from him, she rose her sword and prepared to strike him down.

"I think this is where our fight ends, dear Link" she announced triumphantly.

"Think again!" yelled out the elf and threw a handful of Deku Nuts to the ground in front of Ivy and covered himself with his shield. The nuts exploded in front of Isabella and created a blinding flash.

Link took advantage of his opponent's sudden blindness and decided it was time to end this if he wanted to get out alive. He jumped to his feet and ran towards Isabella, who was bending down and covering her face. When he reached her she hit her right hand with his shield to make her drop her weapon and Isabella realized a second too late that her defeat was at hand.

And it didn't take but an instant for Link to position himself behind Isabella, drop his shield and use his now free hand to hold her firmly while pressing the edge of his own sword against her neck strongly enough to leave a scratch that would take a while to heal but not deep enough to open a wound.

"Do you yield or do I have to kill you?" asked Link firmly and coldly, as if he had used this phrase many times in the past.

After a short battle between her pride and her wish to live, Isabella 'Ivy' Valentine conceded defeat: "I yield." And with those two words Link released his grip on her. Ivy fell to the floor caressing the mark on her neck from her recent battle but didn't have time to do much more, as Link quickly grabbed her two hands, put them behind her back with a rope he got from God knows where.

"What are you doing!" she screamed out. She tried to break herself loose but it was in vain, Link had already tied her up and it was impossible for her to get loose.

"I'm going to take you and your sword to my ship, and you will tell me and my companions all you know about Soul Edge."

That was a shocker for Ivy. He didn't expect this guy to know about Soul Edge. But then again, being such a skilled swordsman he would have to be a fool not to have heard of such a powerful sword. She knew there was nothing for her to say or do, so she complied with the elf's demands with only one doubt: how the hell were they going to get to his ship? The docks were on the other side of the cliff and she wasn't about to swim around it nor did she feel like walking such lung road through the town. When she told Link about this, he simply said "No problem" and picked her up, threw her on his shoulder and carried her towards the town.

Great, just what she needed: to be exposed throughout the entire town by the man who had just beaten her. But apparently Link was planning on keeping a low profile as he took her through many deserted alleys and avoided crowded places as much as he could. Ivy was surprised at first at this guy's knowledge of the streets of the town, but after a while, it was obvious that he was just guided by sheer instinct and relative memory of where his ship (and docks) was. This eventually became painfully obvious as it took them an incredibly long time to reach their destination.

When they arrived to the enormous ship, Ivy saw one of the least persons she expected to see coming out to the ship's deck: Maxi, the pirate from Ryu-Kyu, Japan.

It is more than obvious to say that Maxi was also surprised to see her as well.

"Link, what the hell is going on?" was the first thing that came out of his mouth.

"I believe this woman has information about Soul Edge. So, after beating her in a duel, I brought her here so we can interrogate her." To Link's surprise, Maxi started laughing, hard. After switching his gaze from Link to Ivy –who looked extremely annoyed by the situation- and laughing for a good five minutes, the pirate calmed down and managed to tell Link.

"Link, of course she knows a lot about Soul Edge! She is the person Raphael, Kilik, Xianghua and Sophitia set out to meet this morning!" and after saying this he started laughing again while going back inside the ship, he came back out with a messenger pigeon that had a letter strapped to its leg. He released the pigeon, which flew towards the town in search for whoever the letter was destined for.

While Maxi was away, Link untied his 'prisoner' and excused himself. They remained silent the rest of the time and after about an hour, Raphael, Kilik, Xianghua and Sophitia arrived at the ship. Apparently the pigeon was directed to them. They too were surprised at learning that Link had managed to beat and drag Ivy to their ship from a hidden beach on the other side of town.

But Ivy's obvious anger towards the situation led them to promptly drop the subject and move on to what they had arranged a meeting with Ivy for: information about Soul Edge, who was wielding it this time, and where they could find him.

They talked long after the sunset and in the end, it was decided that Ivy would join them in finding the Soul Edge and destroying it.

The next day, they all went to the market to get supplies for their journey and left under the darkness of night to Italy, where there had been many attacks on villages, all ending in fire, destruction and death to all the villagers.

That's it! I know the ending was crappy but I couldn't think of anything better, maybe I'll come up with something later on and make the proper changes. I hope you liked it and am waiting for your reviews.

Until the next time we see each other! This is Jastul saying: "Courage"!

No, wait, that sounds weak… how about "Have some balls"! Yeah, that's better. See ya!


	4. The Trip To Italy

**Disclaimer**: I don't own any of the characters of Soul Calibur; I'm only using them to have some fun.

Thanks t**o all of you who **have** reviewed!**

And if anybody wants me to talk more about the other characters don't worry, I will, those last two chapters were mainly to introduce Link and I mainly wrote them because I wanted to have a little fun using Link's skills, weapons, and magical powers to show all the potential that he has and that is not fully used even on the Zelda games, but I may use some of that stuff on major battles, and the same will happen with all the other characters, whenever there is a major battle they will become able to do stuff that they normally couldn't (like killing a hundred enemies without much effort just to say something).

And also know that Yunsung and Raphael are two of my favorite characters (at least to play with) so don't be surprised if see a lot from them.

Also thanks to J.R.R. Tolkien, my greater inspiration and Lord of the Literature, for submerging us to the world of Middle-Earth, and for illuminating this world with the story of the sons of Ilúvatar bows down and kisses a copy of the Lord of the Rings and The Silmarrilion ALL HAIL MASTER TOLKIEN! (So don't be surprised if I make any reference to his works, I mean, masterpieces)

_Blades will bleed, Shields will splinter, and heroes will fall. But when evil rises once more... Will there still be a hero to fight it? - Nintendo_

**The Trip to Italy:**

**A New Companion and The Midnight Duel**

It was a rainy night. The small Italian village lay in chaos. The once small but beautiful houses were now nothing more than flaming ruins. The fields and roads were covered by carcasses of cruelly-slaughtered men, women, and children. It was an image that would have caused nausea to anyone; even the bravest of men would have trembled at the sight.

But for the demonic knight that was standing in the middle of the carnage it was nothing more than another day's work. It was just another step in his quest to restore his evil sword. In fact, for this armored creature from hell, this scene of death and chaos was almost amusing.

"PLEASE! DON'T KILL ME!" said the last man alive in the village. He was once a man that called himself the bravest of the entire region, now begging for his life as the Azure Nightmare raised his sword to smite him down.

Don't do it Siegfried! said a young man's voice inside the knight's head don't let the blade control you! but the voice was suddenly quieted by that of an evil presence that had been inside the knight's head for endless time; silence! Do you want to resurrect your father? asked the diabolical voice Not if this is the price to pay! responded the voice,

which had started to fade, being slowly defeated again by the sword.

"DIE!" said in the end the knight in a cold, deadly voice, the voice of Soul Edge, the same voice that had talked inside the youth's head head.

The Azure Nightmare grabbed the man by the face with his demonic hand and lifted him while raised his sword with the other one. He then he gave a horizontal slash at the man's mid section and the body went flying about thirty feet away and smashed into one of the few standing houses, and, when the man's body crashed against the ruined construction it collapsed due to the strength leaving the man's head on his demonic hand which he crushed like a dry mud-ball.

"Lord Nightmare" said lowly a harsh voice, Nightmare turned around and saw one of his most powerful servants: "Astaroth is every single person death?" asked nightmare as if he was discussing the weather "Yes, milord, every single one" commented the golem in the same manner.

"Well then, let us leave this pitiful village since it has nothing more to offer us, call the hoards and prepare everything to depart tomorrow at first light" said the azure knight in a commanding voice.

"As you wish, milord" replied simply the golem and departed to do as his new master said. The Azure Nightmare stood there for a few moments and then disappeared into the shadows of the night, it was just another day of slaughter and massacre for him, just another day in the way to restore the Soul Edge, and just another day to the damnation of hi soul.

It had been a week since our heroes left the French port in which they had met Link and Ivy, they were about two days from the city of Venice and they were looking up to finding new clues about Soul Edge's whereabouts.

It was almost dusk and everything seemed normal, it was then that Kilik, who was standing at the front of the ship looking at the sea yelled: "Guys! I see an island! If we're lucky we might even get some supplies in there!"

Everybody got exited at Kilik's cry and went to try and get a look at the island, but as they got closer to the island their hopes were crushed. The island was nothing more than a small volcanic formation, its fire long extinguished and was covered in thick vegetation. This spit of land was about as large as the city they had just left, but its center was dominated in the center by a small mountain chain that rose sharply from the ground with high precipices, steep cliffs and tall summits that only the birds could reach., leaving only about one-fifth of the island available for plants and animals alike.

They anchored their ship about one-hundred yards from the island and took a small fleet of boats to the shore. They decided that they should look for anything important anyways and they all set out to explore the island. Since the accessible area wasn't so big, they decided to spend the night in here to get away from the ocean's motion and breathe the free air of nature.

As the sun broke the next morning, our heroes started waking up, after washing their faces on the ocean's water and having a hearty breakfast with food they brought from the ship and cooked in a small fire, they decided it was time to explore the island.

As they walked along the shore, they saw in the horizon a small boat with a white sail leave the island and decided to look for anything the people in the boat had left. They eventually came to a small beach which appeared to be the departing place of the boat. They found a trail of footsteps and followed them in search of anything of value. Although one thing was for sure, there had just been a fight between the occupant of the boat and something or someone else, and a bloody one at that since almost every part of the trail they followed had a few drops of freshly dropped blood on it.

The footsteps eventually led them inside the island's wilderness, where they became extremely hard to follow. They followed the trail to the mountain's wall, as they went on, they found a terrible sight: a man was crawling from a crack in the mountain wall, he appeared to be a samurai and had a deep, bloody wound on his side which bled terribly, then, the man collapsed on the ground face down.

Everyone immediately rushed to help him, Yunsung was the first to get there and he immediately turned him around, expecting to see his face, but instead he met a golden mask that looked a lot like a real face.

"What the heck?" muttered Yunsung.

"No way" said Xianghua when she saw who the wounded samurai was. "Yoshimitsu?" she asked hoping that it was only an imitator of the renowned manji ninja.

"Apparently it is him" said Sophitia "But the question is how did he end up like this?" she ended.

"Wait a minute!" said Kilik suddenly "I recognize this place! This is the money pit! Which means Voldo is nearby; he's the only one who could have done this to Yoshimitsu" he said in a sudden lapse of fear, Voldo, the guardian of the money pit was very treacherous and sneaky, he could even be hiding nearby in the shadows, waiting for one to lower their guard and attack,

"Everybody, stay alert!" ordered Sophitia feeling very similar to Kilik "make a circle around me and Yoshimitsu and be ready for anything. If you see anything move, tell the others, do not attack until you see something clearly!" and so did everybody: they drew their weapons and formed a tight circle around them that had them all almost shoulder to shoulder as if they had done this many times before, and prepared to fight in a moment's notice

"He's not here" said a faint voice behind them "he left to find the Soul Edge for his master" they all turned to see Yoshimitsu sitting up, Sophitia had ripped part of her long dress and used the cloth as a quick bandage to stop the bleeding and it seemed like he hadn't lost much blood. Compared to loosing almost an entire arm, this wasn't much for the manji ninja.

They all remembered the boat they had seen a while ago and reasoned that it was Voldo on it. They all put down their weapons and directed their attention to the samurai. "What happened?" said Maxi.

"Not too long ago, I sensed the rebirth of Soul Edge, I knew that many evil things will feel it too and would try to find it, so I came down here to stop Voldo before he left for the sword.

But he ambushed me during the night and I was injured, then he took my sword again and I was forced to follow him before he went too deep inside the cave, but I was ambushed again and he departed to search for the blade, luckily I managed to retake my sword, but I was too tired to even make it back to my boat."

"Do you have any idea of where he was heading?" said Raphael.

"Probably to Italy" said Yoshimitsu and fainted.

He woke about five hours later, it had become dark and his rescuers had apparently found something to light a fire with and they were sitting around it at about 30 yards from the coast, he was laying on a bed of leaves and weeds and his wounds had apparently been tended by the sword seekers.

"And what may bring such mighty warriors to the money pit?" was the first thing he said when waking up "Riches? No, some of you have already been here and know that even without Voldo here it is far too dangerous to risk it. Trying to do the same as me perhaps?" he was glad that they had had been respectful enough not to remove his mask.

"Actually, we found this island by accident, we were on our way to Italy and decided to stop in here to rest and get all the supplies we could get" said Maxi.

"Well then, I must thank the lady luck for directing you here, if you had not been here I would have probably died of blood loss" said the manji.

"Well, I think that may have not been the only reason" said Kilik. "I mean, the same as you, we all felt the Soul Edge return and we are looking for it to destroy it for good. And while you where unconscious we decided to ask you to come with us and help us in the fight."

"My dear Kilik" started Yoshimitsu "I will be glad to join you, I will only put two conditions; first, if Voldo ever crosses our path, leave him to me, and any of you shall not fight him unless I go down" he paused to see if they agreed which they all did with a quick nod "and second, if he manages to escape, I have your leave to go and chase him unless my blade and skills are of dire need" he ended.

"It seems like you have yourself a deal, Yoshimitsu of the Manji Clan" said Xianghua happily.

"Well then, let us rest tonight and leave tomorrow, I will get my belongings from my boat and load them into your ship tomorrow, also if it is possible that we carry my boat on your ship I will be thankful."

"Of course, there is more than enough room in our ship, we could put it in the storage room if you don't mind" said Maxi who, as the owner of the ship, decided what went and what didn't go in it, "Not at all" said Yoshimitsu.

"Well, if that is all, I'll suggest that we go to sleep, tomorrow will be a long day" said the young Sorél master. Everyone agreed with him and they sat up a camp, there was no need to set any kind of barriers or protections because it was more than impossible to be attacked in an island in the middle of nowhere whose only inhabitant had just left that same day.

The next day they all woke up at dawn, first of, they decided to try and check if they could get inside the money pit. Yoshimitsu had talked about an armory that was not too deep inside the cave and they decided that it was worth at least going and checking if they could find anything of use to them.

It had been about five minutes since they entered the cave and they met their first trap, but it was nothing more than a simple net that was easily destroyed by their swords, then about ten minutes later they came to a hallway and Yoshimitsu stopped them with a hush "Be careful, I sense danger" he said softly, the he took a stone from the floor and threw it to the middle of the hall, when the stone hit the floor the walls poured spikes and went together at incredible speed.

"Just as I thought" said the thief and then turned and started to trace the wall until he founded a loose brick on the wall and pushed it, then they heard a roar like thunder and the wall started moving, then it went inside and revealed a hidden passage, they followed the passage and eventually found the armory.

They all went inside and started analyzing the different items that they found in there, Yunsung found a leather chest-plate that he put over his silk shirt, he also got a pair of black pants that were more comfortable than his and appeared to be more resistant. He also took some dark-leather boots since his shoes were pretty worn out.

Raphael only took a dagger that he put inside one of his boots just in case, Kilik didn't find anything but a pair of light shoes that he took and some black finger-less gloves that he ended up giving them to Yunsung, who just wanted them because he thought that they looked cool on him.

Maxi found a dagger that he equipped in the same manner as Raphael and also a pistol, Yoshimitsu didn't even bothered looking for anything since he had already taken all he wanted the first time he came in, right before Voldo attacked him. Cassandra found a feminine armor that included a green chest-plate, some metal shin guards and also metallic gauntlets that came with a winged helmet that she really didn't like so she didn't took (third costume without the helmet).

Link found a new quiver that could hold up to an incredible number of 100 arrows and also the arrows to fill it, and even though they were too long for his bow, he took them anyways saying he would fix that as soon as he had time on the ship. They told him to get also some armor for himself but he said that his white undergarments were the best armor that he could ask for, resistant and light, plus the Kokiri Tunic that was already of reinforced material and others he had among his belongings in the ship.

Talim found some finger-less gloves that were pretty much like the ones Kilik had given Yunsung except that those gave the owner a better grip on their weapons and were excellent for her to have both grip on her elbow blades and at the same time be able to spin them at will in her hand.

Sophitia found a pink and yellow armor that fit her incredibly well and came with an extra shield that she decided to keep just in case and she strapped to her back (second costume with the shield on the back and the original one in hand).

Ivy didn't even bother to take anything, saying that taking an extra weapon would be an insult for her Ivy-Blade.

But the biggest surprise came when Xianghua found a weapon that she found suited for her, and when she examined closely, she found something she did not expect.

"Krita-Yuga!" she yelled in excitement, "It's here! Guys come here! This is the sword I used to fight Nightmare four years ago!"

"Really? That's awesome! Maybe it will turn again into the Soul Calibur when we fight whoever has the sword! This is great!" Kilik ended unable to contain his joy.

And with that they all left the armory of the money pit, how had Krita-Yuga ended up in there? They did not know nor cared, as long as they had found it, and from that moment Xianghua tried to adapt her style so she could use both her newly-found Krita-Yuga and the sword she took as a replacement for the former (No Name) at the same time, she practiced all the way to the Italian coasts and she was able to adapt that modification to her style in no time and her dance-fight became even more beautiful and way deadlier.

After they left the armory they went directly back to _Le_ _Messeger de L'Espoir_, they prepared to leave while Yoshimitsu, Raphael and Link went to get the ninja's boat and carry it back to the ship.

They departed a little later than noon and they hurried to the Italian Peninsula. They arrived five days later at a rural port-city much like the one they had docked in while on France, they didn't bother to rent any rooms either for they could sleep on the ship's rooms.

It was late at night, Cassandra was trying to sleep, but she just couldn't, her mind just didn't let her, so much had happened in so little time; first she had embarked in her quest to destroy Soul Edge in her sister's place, then six weeks later her sister had found her and in the end they decided to go together, they met Talim first, then Kilik, Xianghua and Maxi and lastly Raphael, Ivy, Yoshimitsu and that elven guy named Link not less than a month ago and she barely knew anything about any them.

It's not like she wanted to know anything about Ivy that her sister hadn't already told her, besides she looked like a cheap whore and she didn't wanted to be seen with someone like her unless she had to, and apparently, she had, luckily she had the descence of wearing a cape over her scandalous garments, which made some of the males on the group a little sad but they got over it and went back to normal.

She decided to go for a walk along the ship's deck and maybe look at the stars for a while, but when she was on her way she decided to go and train a little, so at least she would use her time in something that could actually save her life if it was needed, she took her new armor and Sophitia's old weapons and went to the "training room."

The training room was nothing more than one of the two great vaults of the ship, the other one was used to storage food and such goods, it was located on the ship's lowest level and it covered half of the ship's base, the other half was the storage room, but when she opened the door she found Link with his back turned to her, his bow in hand, and he was shooting at some targets made up of circles that were on the other side of the room; to her surprised he made a bull's-eye almost every time, and the distance had to be at least forty yards!

"Wow, how can you do that?" asked Cassandra when Link made yet another bull's-eye. He then noticed he had company and turned around to face the Athenian, he looked straight into her eyes, she looked so much like her, but at the same time she was different, very different, besides of the ears, this one had the looks of a warrior rather than a princess, yes, she was also beautiful, but in a more rebellious way.

"Hi, I didn't knew I had company" he said simply after a few seconds of looking in her eyes, when their eyes met Cassandra could've sworn that she saw love in his eyes, but that love had also a dreamy and sad expression, like that of a lost love, but then that light faded away and it gave pass to a battle hardened look, the look of a warrior that has overcome and slayed many enemies, but at the same time the look of a child, the look of complete light, and a strange holy aura that seemed older than the world itself. She would always remember that overwhelming mix of power, ruthlessness and innocence deep within her heart.

"How long have you been watching?" he asked, dragging her out of her reverie

"Enough to see you out-do every archer I've met" she said trying to hide the slight blush that formed on her face. Did she notice her staring at him so deeply? She hoped not.

"Well, I've had more than ten years of practice with these, and when you have as much need for a weapon like these like I had during my quest to defeat Ganondorf you become as used to shooting an arrow as you become used to walking." He said trying to downgrade his skills; he knew he was the best archer, swordsman and essentially the best damn fighter of almost any other kind in Hyrule but he didn't like to brag about it, he had always been as humble as he could.

"Can you teach me how to shoot with a bow? I always specialized myself in hand to hand combat and never tried to learn any other than the Athenian fighting styles." She said trying to have an excuse to spend time with this warrior that had charmed her without even knowing.

"It's actually quite simple; it's only a matter of practice. Here, have this" and then he gave Cassandra his old quiver that could store up to 40 arrows and a bow that he had taken from the armory when no one was looking, he didn't knew why he did it that way though. He had thought that maybe someone of the group at least knew how to use it and could come in handy for sneak attacks on the enemy and stuff like that.

They stayed up for about an hour and by that time Cassandra was already a fairly good archer, enough to make a bull's eye at about 15 yards and had a decent aim at 25, but from then on her aim started to decline.

"Don't worry" said Link after they were done "Not much people have such good results in their first lesson, you should be proud of yourself, now go to sleep, apparently we set sail in three days" he said trying to get her to go to sleep so he could have some time to practice.

"What about you? Aren't you going to sleep?" asked the Athenian girl. "Actually" replied Link "I was planning on doing some practice with my other sword since I still don't have complete control over it since it is incredibly heavy"

"Really? What kind of sword is it?" asked Cassandra with a sudden urge to know more about Link

"It's a sword that was forged by Hyrule's greatest smith: Death Mountain's Big Goron. It is a large, double-edged sword that is incredibly resistant and powerful but is heavy as it is strong and quite hard to use effectively." he said with slight embarrassment for being unable to use a sword correctly, even if it was a sword meant for beings dozens of times stronger than humans, well, hylians.

"Well then, why don't we have a little sparing? It will be useful for both of us and I want a rematch from last time" said the blonde with a smile.

"You want to get beat up again?" said Link with a confident smile.

"Beat up? You cheated last time!" replied Cassandra "If I remember well you ambushed us in the middle of the night while we were resting!"

"Yeah but I was outnumbered and still managed to defeat you and your friends"

"Whatever!" said Cassandra "Let's go then if you are so confident, no tricks, only our swords, shields and hand-to-hand tactics, if anyone uses anything other than that he or she forfeits" said Cassandra confident that she'll beat Link, or at least give him a good fight.

"When do we start then?" said Link boosting with confidence while he drew his Biggoron's sword and Mirror Shield.

"Now!" said Cassandra who had already taken her weapons and jumped at Link with a vertical strike. Link sidestepped and kicked Cassandra on the stomach and then pushed her away. "Starting before time? That's such a dirty trick!" said Link taunting the blonde girl who was rubbing her stomach where Link had kicked her.

"You looked so confident that I thought you wouldn't mind, and apparently you don't" she said and rushed at him. She stabbed at him but he blocked the Omega Sword with his shield and then slashed at her but she blocked with her shield and charged at Link and hit him with her shoulder which almost made him fall but he back flipped and regained his balance just in time to block another slash from the Omega Sword, but that was only a distraction for her real blow: a punch in the face with her shield that he barely dodged by going down into a bending position.

He then came up with a knee to her gut and used the same punching attack that she had just attempted but this time it made impact and she went down and fell on her back, she then looked up and saw Link jumping at her with a powerful vertical slash that would be deadly if it hit, but she managed to block it with her sword and then, while she was still on the floor she put both her feet on his stomach and then pushed him away towards the wall, he then rolled over and turned to face Cassandra.

She got up and ran towards him; she gave a vertical slash which Link, who was barely getting to his knees, barely blocked with his sword, he then punched her in the stomach again and got up, but Cassandra wouldn't give up so easily and charged him again with all her strength, they clashed swords and she managed slashed furiously and relentlessly, making the elf back down, until he was about 5 foot away from one the walls, then the Athenian stabbed at him; big mistake, Link had been counting on that and sidestepped, then pushed her towards the wall, she tried to turn but it all happened to fast, the Omega Sword stabbed into the ship's wooden wall and got stuck in there, and thanks to the thickness of the wall she didn't made a hole through, then Link twisted her left arm behind her back and she let her shield go, and Link's sword was on her throat, the match was over.

"Do you give up or do you want another beating?" asked the elf letting his ego drip from his voice.

"Okay, okay, I give up! You won" said Cassandra reluctantly but feeling incredibly bad.

"There you go!" said Link in a triumphant manner "That wasn't so hard, right?" said Link sarcastically taking his sword away from her neck.

"It's not hard to admit defeat when there is a six-foot long sword pressed against your neck!" exploded Cassandra, this defeat was getting on her nerves, or was it the way he was acting about it? Maybe it was both, maybe it was only her pride crumbling to dust or maybe it was the attraction she was feeling towards him that made her angry since she had always thought of herself too tough to feel _that_ kind of affection for someone.

"Well, that proved to be good training, you're a worthy rival Cassandra, good night" said Link and took his stuff and left before Cassandra even got over the battle and pain; leaving her in a state of confusion, especially when she remembered how close their bodies had been just moments ago. She blushed furiously at this

Eventually she recovered from the shock and packed all her stuff and went to sleep realizing that the fight with Link had taken all she had and more, she had fought like if he was a true enemy that she had to defeat and she still lost.

The whole night she was plagued by this, what if that was to happen on a real scenario? Will she die? No, she won't, she couldn't, she wouldn't let herself die….Link wouldn't let her die.

There you go people! How was it? I'll try and update soon, and thanks to all of you who have reviewed, and to those who haven't **PLEASE DO!**

I have chapters 1 – 8 written out already, I just have to edit them a little and will probably post them with a two week intervals.

How did you like Nightmare's little performance? There'll be more of him in future chapters, also know that I'm trying to introduce a new character to the story every chapter but it either won't work or I'll run out of characters eventually.

Well, see you later and thanks for reviewing

Yours Truly:

Jastul


	5. A Pirate's Life for Me

**Disclaimer**: I don't own any of the characters of Soul Calibur; I'm only using them to have some fun.

**Thanks to all of you who have reviewed!**

From now on I will call the group of warriors the "seekers" or "blade seekers" or something along this line, just so you know.

And if anyone wants me to introduce any new characters or give more "on-screen" time, per say, to characters already in here just tell me and I'll try to see how I can fit them into the story

Well, let's get going with the story!

"Life is like a flower as it stumbles out of fall"  
-Kamelot

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**A Pirate's Life for Me & the Trip through Italy:**

In the eastern shores of Sicily, an ominously looking ship docked in yet another unfortunate city, the ship's captain hoped to find in this country what he had sought for so long and was yet unable to find: the other blade of the Soul Edge; it had been so long since he had been defeated, and it had been so long since he had reawaken as little more than a zombie whose only mission was to retake the power he once possessed.

He was standing in the ship's higher part without counting the watching post, he looked down at his troops: outcasts and thieves, murderers and betrayers, just the kind of people needed to help him achieve his goal, and now that he came to think about it, it was rather funny, he had told them that whenever he obtained the Soul Edge and ruled the land, he would give them power and riches, and he more than well knew that whenever that time came when the Soul Edge returned within his grasp, he would use his crew's souls to power the blade even more.

Silly little humans, they didn't knew, and they still followed him obediently, like a rat being mesmerized by the snake's eyes and comes closer to its death out of free will. He caressed the sword that he was holding: the female Soul Edge, the only blade that he had been able to retain after being defeated, but this one was special, this one was his own version of the Soul Edge, created out of the shards of the broken sword, and manipulated by the shards that lay within the pirate's body. He was finally the master of the Soul Edge, and when he recovered the second blade from that German thief he would be invincible.

"Soon enough my dear Siegfried, soon enough, just you wait until the power of my Soul Edge is restored and we'll see who is stronger: the Azure Nightmare or the Dread Pirate!" he announced triumphantly and then laughed maniacally at the thought of reaping the heart out of the Nightmare and then taking the blade from him "And then all will be back to the way it should be" he said evilly.

"But for now, let's just concentrate on the road ahead. This village seems pretty well inhabited, and the souls of this people will be more than enough to get me going for a while" he said smiling at the thought of the massacre to come. Then he directed his attention to his crew "Well, my men! Today comes yet another day on our ascension to power! This village is plentiful on souls and shall serve our purpose well! (My purpose, he thought) Now go and kill or take and bring to me as many as you can! Their souls will be absorbed by the Soul Edge and our power will become greater! Let the massacre begin!" and with his final command the crew ran down of the ship and went to sack and plunder at will, but most important, they went to kill.

In a few minutes the screams of alarm and fear filled the atmosphere, Cervantes considered this as music, and as each voice stopped yelling, he felt the Soul Edge increase in power and rejoice, and his evil plot seemed to be working to perfection.

"Soon enough Nightmare, soon enough. After I'm done with you, Inferno's most brutal attack will seem to you like a mother's caress and you will bow down to me and beg for mercy that you shall not receive. Soon enough" he said to no one in particular and then he just dedicated to hear the screams of dying men, women and children. After some time he got bored of just listening and decided to go down and get some action for himself. If it had been a massacre before, now it was pure slaughter: the smell of death quickly filled the air as the Dread Pirate entered the city, closely followed by the shadow of death wherever he went.

By sunrise the village had been torn down, every house burned, and every men killed and every thing considered valuable had been taken inside the vaults of Cervantes's ship, when he arrived he had told his men to forgive women and do what they pleased with the children, he had told them to take any women they thought to be pretty to be brought back to the ship.

Whoever brought a women with him would be allowed to have his way with her and share her as he pleased. There were more than a few who brought more than one, since the captain had said that _every_ woman they brought, and so they decided to take as many as they could, in the end the ship was full of female prisoners, their age varying from the early 15 to even some 50 year old women. They were all named the captain's official "concubines" although the proper term would have been sexual slave. In the end were so many that the pirates didn't care who brought which woman, and that night the pirates went from cabin to cabin exchanging women and raping them several times. Those who resisted too much were killed, and those who weren't wished they were because the next day, the next day they became exclusive property of the ship's captain, property of the most ruthless and evil man to walk the earth.

The next day Cervantes called upon his 'troops' and made them release the few male prisoners which hadn't been fed to the evil sword "You are now free to go and die in any way you please!" he said sadistically "Now go! And tell the world that the Dread Pirate, Cervantes de Leon has returned!" he said with a maniacal tone in his voice to the prisoners, which immediately broke in a sprint towards wherever fear or the hope of safety led them.

Then one of the pirates approached Cervantes and kneeling before him he asked "Where are we heading now my lord?" Cervantes looked down at him and said: "I've always liked trading cities, and they say Venice is lovely at this time of the year" he said as if he was planning his next vacation while an evil grin crossed his face.

"Venice it is then, sir" replied happy that they would get to sack such important city. "Wait for me Nightmare, and do not waste my sword's power…when I'm done with you, you will bow down to me and beg for mercy. That'll be of course, right before I kill you and retake what is rightly mine" he then laughed maniacally at the thought and after a few moments he calmed down and went to "initiate" his concubines. But first, he went to check on what his men had plundered from the destroyed city in which they were docked.

If he was going to live for ever, he couldn't find a better way to do it. "Oh yes, I was borned to live a pirate's life" he said when he looked at all his treasures.

Sophitia awoke in the middle of the night with a scream, she was covered in sweat and her breathing was uneasy. "No way! He should've been death! I saw his body burn in the flames of Soul Edge after Taki defeated him!" she had seen Cervantes's attack to an Italian port from a few days ago. She knew what his evil mind was capable of, but she didn't know that he was able to come back from the death.

After she finished talking to herself Cassandra rushed inside her tent, followed closely by Link and Kilik, who had their weapons drawn "Sophitia what's wrong?" she said greatly concerned "I think I just had a nightmare" she said still uneasy "Well, that isn't so bad" said Kilik relieved "it wasn't just a dream Kilik, it was more like a vision, it was far too real…I saw him, I saw him slaughter all those people, and I saw him feed the souls of many an innocent person to the Soul Edge" she said trying in vain to forget what she had just seen in her dream.

"You mean Nightmare?" he said, his relief far from gone by now.

"No, I meant Cervantes" she said simply

"WHAT!" I thought that you and that ninja Taki had defeated and killed him a long time ago!" he said without believing her words.

"That's what I thought too, but apparently he some how managed to return from the death, and take with him one of the blades of the Soul Edge" she said still in shock.

"He's headed to Venice, we have to stop him before he reaches that city. If he manages to power up his word with the souls of all the people living there he will become almost as powerful as before." Said Sophitia as they were exiting the tent.

"Then we'll change our course north-east wards, if travel trough coastal towns and we're lucky, we might be able to intercept him before he gets to Venice, if he is in the south western shores of Italy it will take him long enough for us to catch up with him, it should be at least a month for both of us to reach the city, and if we hurry we might be able to get there before him. Good night." And with that he and Link went back to their guard posts, leaving Sophitia to an uneasy sleep while Cassandra stayed behind.

"Sophitia…"

"What is it, sis?" she answered.

"Well, I have a question to ask you."

"Tell me."

After some hesitation, she finally responded: "Well, how do you know when you're in love?"

This was probably the last thing the Athenian expected to hear at the moment. She thought it was going to be something along the lines of "do you think we'll be able to beat him?" or "do you think we'll come out of this one alive?" Not something about love.

"Why do you ask me that? Is there someone back at home you've been thinking of lately?" she asked the later with a mischievous smile on her face.

"Not exactly at home" Cassandra responded. And when she saw that mischievous glint on her sister's eyes again, she knew she had said too much and quickly tried to correct her mistake. "Just wanted to know" she finished blushing, thankful Sophitia couldn't see this through the darkness of the room.

"Well, just listen to your heart and you'll know, little sister." She finally answered with a smile. It was good to be able to talk about this sort of things with her sister in these hard times.

After Cassandra left the room Sophitia gave out a little giggle, thinking of the men on the ship and trying to figure out which one had stolen her sister's heart: There was Kilik with his stoicism and strong character, Yunsung with his rebellious attitude and wild persona, Maxi, since Cassandra had always been attracted to danger and adventure and a pirate could very easily provide both things, Raphael with his aristocratic elegance and confident demeanor and last, but not least, Link, with his mysterious aura and other-worldly handsomeness. All of them were very skilled fighters and each attractive in his own right. Man, she wanted to know! So she decided she was going to start an investigation on Cassandra and try to find out. And with that she laid down and tried to get some sleep while recalling the way Cassandra acted around all of these men.

They arrived at a port in southern Italy and stayed in there for two days, trying to learn what they could about the Soul Edge, on their second day they heard that a knight who commanded armies of fear and wielded a sword of death had been attacking small villages in the southern region of Italy, and that the only information they had about him was the moans of a dying man who had lived in one of the firsts villages that had been attacked, he had only lived long enough to tell of the attack and that the attacker was like a nightmare, that he was followed by demons of many terrible forms, that even the forces of the underworld bent to his will and his crimson gaze would make the bravest of men fall to their knees and beg for their lives; "We didn't stand a chance, everyone who fell inside his attack range was almost immediately killed by his massive blade, all I could hear were the voices of men and women alike begging for their lives and those of their children, but the fiend showed no mercy, I doubt that hell itself would take him back" were his last words.

The attacks had been following a northern path and many thought that he was a general of the forces of hell itself who was going to Rome to destroy the center of the Catholic Church.

Of course, the seekers knew better than to believe the last statement. But the description was too close to that of the Azure Nightmare and they knew that he wouldn't care at all about the church unless there was a Soul Edge shard inside a Catholic temple.

"I still can't believe he survived the void" said Xianghua when they heard of this "his power must be great indeed to have survived our last encounter and get back to the path of destruction in only four years" she stated troubled, for she remembered that the wound she had inflicted upon Nightmare with the Soul Calibur would have been deadly to any man, especially one of such evil being pierced by something as pure as the Soul Calibur. She was also starting to be afraid since she and Kilik had barely been able to survive their last encounter with Soul Edge and Nightmare, it had almost taken their lives and apparently it had not been enough, she wondered if he would be able to survive yet another battle against him. Would she be able to beat him this time? She hoped so.

"Don't worry Xianghua, this time we'll make sure that he and the Soul Edge go back to the hell hole from which they came from" said Kilik since he was thinking the exact same thing that Xianghua was about their last encounter with the knight

The next morning they told the others about what had happened to Sophitia in the night and they headed north east. When they were wandering about how to get transportation, Link pulled out a small sack full of green, blue, red, yellow, orange and even silver gems he called "rupees." They were all amazed at the beauty of these gems, especially when Link told them they were the currency of his land.

"So you and your people have enough of these laying around to just use them as money?" asked Talim in awe.

"Well, they're not just 'lying around,' most of these are products of alchemy. Except for the silver and orange ones, which are actually very rare and are quite valuable in may land. I've used them to pay for everything I've bought along my trip, since your people seem to take these as more than enough payment."

"I can see why they would, they're beautiful!" exclaimed Cassandra. "If I had even a small one of these in a ring I would consider myself lucky."

After they all were over the beauty of the gems, Link explained them the way they were valued and a little about Hyrule's economy right before they went to the market to get some transportation. They managed to purchase some horses by using two of Link's many green rupees which the salesman took as more than enough payment and he even promised to take their ship to Venice for just another rupee, which they gladly gave him since they had so many. He seemed a good, honest man and that was almost enough for Maxi although he still needed some convincing from his friends.

They left everything they could on the ship and mounted their horses. They were at the moment riding through one of Italy's mountain ranges, since it was easier to cut through the country than to go around it on their way to Venice. They had been ridding for about a week, at first it was a little hard on some of the seekers to get used to ridding a horse, especially since some didn't even knew how to control completely their horse.

After they figured out how to do all this, they went swiftly though the hills of Italy and after two days they exited the mountains, then, after another five days they arrived at the Italian coast line, from there they headed north, carrying only food, water, their weapons, tents, clothes and a small box where Sophitia had stored the shards of Soul Edge they had gathered so far.

The next day they arrived at a small town in which they stopped to take a rest, that night, while having dinner on the inn's tavern, they learned that the hellish knight that had been terrorizing Italy was finally identified as the Azure Nightmare, this the seekers already knew but they also learned that he was moving at a really fast pace and by now he had already past Rome -which was a great relief for the pope and all the other members of the Catholic Church- and he was probably somewhere near the Italian northern borders as they spoke.

"The evil of the underworld is giving him speed, and the darkness of his heart gives him strength without measure, no one who has faced him is known to have survived and told the tale, only those who hide deep inside the earth ere his arrival or under the bodies of the fallen manage to survive" said the man who was telling the tale "No one knows what his purpose is, but some say that it is to destroy human kind, but I don't really think that is the reason"

"Why not?" asked Sophitia to keep the guy talking so they could get as much information as they could.

"He has not attacked many important cities, mostly countryside villages that are apart from the world, if he wanted to destroy human kind, he would have started by destroying Rome, one of the most powerful cities of the world and maybe the richest and the house of the Catholic Church"

"So what do you think he really is up to?" asked Yunsung, he really didn't care much about this guy, but if he could provide them with information about the Soul Edge he would listen.

"I'm not sure, probably some sort of treasure that has been hidden away from society, that would be the only reason to attack those God-forsaken places"

A treasure... Everyone pondered the thought, Xianghua and Sophitia had told them that the Soul Edge, being a living and cunning thing, would probably try to find ways of restoring itself as fast as it could, so the thought of the Soul Edge hiding itself from the world while using its puppet to find the shards seemed quite possible.

On the other hand, that also meant that Nightmare was able to track down the shards with very good accuracy and at what seemed a very fast rate, which would make his sword stronger very quickly and, if that was true, he could probably feel the shards they had with them and might be able to found them anytime he wanted.

"We must get ready to leave tomorrow" said Link coming from the bar "we have to stop the Pirate Cervantes, I've learned from a man at the bar that there had been several attacks to costal towns all over the Italian peninsula, starting from the isle of Sicily, they are all commanded by a pirate of Spanish appearance who wielded two swords. For what you've told me about him, it must be Cervantes" they all nodded with determination and went to their rooms to get ready for the next day.

"We leave at dawn, so be ready" said Maxi. Before they all broke up into different groups and went to their respective rooms.

The next morning, they had all woken up at least an hour before dawn, they got dressed, cleaned, and went to the stables to make their horses ready, the fact of Cervantes and Nightmare killing all around Italy, and anywhere inside Europe in Nightmare's case, gave them strength to endure the ride, when the sun showed its face upon the town in which they were, they had already reached the village's borders and rode as fast as they could when the first ray of light hit them, they went at an almost continuous sprint for almost three hours before making a stop so the horses could rest and graze a little. After about thirty minutes they mounted again and rode away at a slower pace, although they were still going faster that any common group of travelers would go, they arrived at Venice after two weeks of swift riding, hard walking and traveling from sun to sun. It was now only a matter of getting ready for Cervantes and his ship to arrive at the city.

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That's it! How did you like it? I'm not very good at geography so I'm not sure if my timing on the trip was right. If you think it was good review and tell me (even if it's a simple "good job" or "well done") If not, also review and tell me why you think it wasn't. C'MON PEOPLE! IT'S NOT THAT HARD!

Well, on the next chapter we will see:

What happens to our heroes when they arrive to the city of Venice. Some comedy included, Warning: everybody looks extremely bad-ass in the beginning of this chapter. It will be sort of slow and mostly just sets up the stage for chapter 7, the battle of Venice. That's when the real action comes up; but you won't understand most of it if you don't read the next one.

It would be a great and bloody battle with some comical situations and a rather unexpected ending. Wait and see!

Jastul

_Impossible is a word that weak men invented to live comfortably in the world they're given. Impossible is not a fact, is an opinion; it's not a statement, but a challenge. Impossible is unattained potential, impossible is temporal._


	6. Venice

**Disclaimer**: I don't own any of the characters of Soul Calibur; I'm only using them to have some fun.

Well, here's chapter 6, I hope it satisfies everyone's expectations. Enjoy and Merry Christmas, Hannuka, Kuanza or whatever you celebrate!

**_Impossible is nothing, but improbable is a real bitch.  
Pablo Mastretta_**

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**Venice:**

The day after the seekers arrived at Venice they immediately started looking for information about Cervantes's location, apparently he and his crew had been plundering coastal villages. Following a pattern similar to the one in Sophitia's vision, but due to his continuous stopping he would take an extra two weeks to arrive to the city. Before the seekers arrived no one knew for sure that he was heading there, but it was a guess many had taken, and the city had been practically emptied, by the time they got there only about two hundred persons had stayed behind, either out of confidence that the pirate won't attack them, or out of love to their land.

They walked in the middle of the town's square and summoned all people. When they were all gathered there Kilik -who was the un-proclaimed leader of the group along with Sophitia and Raphael- gave the fatal announcement.

"People of Venice listen to me! The Dread Pirate Cervantes is coming to your city! He is coming here to pillage your houses, rape you women and kill you all!" he announced solemnly. This obviously got all the people very agitated and on the edge or rioting. "Is he supposed to say that? I thought we were going to give these people hope" whispered Yunsung to Talim's ear. "Shh! be quiet" was her only response.

"But Have no fear! I and my friends are willing to help you fend off this fiend!" he proceeded without hearing Yunsung's comment but was interrupted before he could go on any longer as a voice came from the crowd.

"How? The man is the devil himself! We could never stand up to him! He'll squash us like he did to all those other cities! Even our own government has not sent an army to help us in fear that the Dread Pirate would destroy them as easily as if they were sheep!"

"The reason why your government has not sent an army is because they don't know for sure if the pirate will stop here or just go to another city. But I have sent word to Rome summoning help. They will be here by the time he comes."

"It doesn't matter! The pirate will kill us all no matter what" said the same voice.

"That's not true! Me and my friends are willing to teach you all how to defend yourselves, we can make a plan on how to counterattack the pirate's forces, and the only thing we ask in return is food and a place to stay until the pirate comes." Kilik was getting really tired of this, by now, the guy whom he was arguing with had stepped up and he seemed to be getting more people on his side than Kilik was.

"And how are we supposed to trust you all? I would want proof of your 'great' skills before putting my life and my town on your hands." At this, everyone in the crowd nodded and demanded the same proof.

Kilik was getting tired, these people obviously needed to see to believe, so he decided that if they wanted them to show off their skills, they would do just that. So, he went to his pack and took out a bag of dry apples from it. Then he called Link, whom he already knew to be the best archer of the group. He then made all the seekers draw their weapons.

"You people want proof of our skills? Well then, Link draw your bow!" and he did "Now, I'm going to throw this bag of apples to the sky and I want you to use nothing but your bow and arrows to rip the bag open and then hit each apple in the center with an arrow." He then turned to the rest of the seekers "Then, I want all of you to cut all the apples straight trough the middle with your weapons before they touch the ground." He then turned the people and told them "If we manage to do that, will you trust us?" the crowd immediately responded yes and Kilik took the bag of apples and waited for Link to get ready, when the elf gave him the signal, he threw it as hard as he could straight up.

The bag flew up until it was about 30 feet from the ground but, by the time, it had several holes in it due to Link's great aim and it wasn't before long that all the apples were pierced straight through the middle by one of the elf's missiles. When the apples came down, they were all met by the seeker's swords, some jumped up to have more time to cut down the falling fruits. They all did their part and by the time the apples hit the ground they were cut in half, with each half pierced by an arrow that had also been cut by the blades.

When this was over, the crowd immediately started cheering. But the man that had been arguing with Kilik didn't seem satisfied yet. "How about you?" he asked the former monk. "I didn't see _you_ do anything but throw a bunch of fruit in the sky. Why should we you trust?" The people quickly realized this was true and demanded Kilik to do something as well.

"Well, I'm waiting." Said the man impatiently.

That was it; Kilik could take anything else from this man, so he decided to use him for his little demonstration. He drew Kali-Yuga and walked to the half-apples in the ground, he broke the arrow that was coming out of one of them with his staff so there was not a splinter coming out of the piece of fruit on either side.

He then hit the apple on of the sides so it jumped up a little, then, before it hit the ground, he hit it on the bottom part and the fruit jumped to Kilik's eye level. Before it could fall down, however, Kilik hit it once again, this time sending it flying straight towards the annoying man's face. The apple hit him straight in the nose and he fell down unconscious and with a bleeding nose full of pieces of apple.

"Anybody else wants a demonstration from me or my partners?" asked Kilik exasperated. No one said anything. "Good, so lets get on with the training."

The next two weeks were spent training the people from Venice how to defend themselves: They were thought basic swordsmanship, hand to hand combat skills and tricks and how to shoot a bow and arrow. They were all very enthusiastic about learning all this in order to fending off the evil pirate all except the man that had caused them so much trouble when they arrived. But it wasn't such a problem after all, since he left the city two days later with his family, saying he wouldn't "trust some random mercenaries that just appeared out of nowhere like the rest of the fools in town."

One of the seeker's main concerns had been the making of the weapons, but they were met with the happy surprise that a smith and his family still lived in the town. He and his son made swords and bows for the entire town. Link said he would take care of the arrows. And he did in an unexpected manner: he went to a forest near the city, chopped down a few trees, brought them back to the town to make the body of the arrows, went back in and killed a few birds to take their feathers and why not their meat, then went back into the forest and came back with a bag full of dead snakes, spiders, tarantulas and scorpions, which he was going to use to mix their poisons and soak the arrow tips in them. The arrowheads were made by the smith and son under Link's specifications.

After nine days of careful planning, the seekers and some Venetians came up with the perfect way of defeating Cervantes: They will first burn down all the docks large enough for a traveling ship to pass except for one so they knew where Cervantes was going to arrive no matter what. They, they will blockade all the streets with whatever they could find to create an alley of sorts that went deep inside the city and was about three miles long.

They will place archers on the rooftops of the buildings on both sides of the alley that would be shooting at Cervantes's troops as they walked through the alley. When Cervantes arrived and his troops empty the ship, a group of volunteers would lead them into the alley deep enough for the people on the rooftops to seal the entrance to it, so the pirates would have no choice but to stay on their path.

When the pirates had all entered the passage, people who were inside the first buildings would come out and block off the exit and then the fun would begin: The idea was to trap all the pirates inside this place, where they would then be shot at with the bows and forced to run. After running for three miles, of course, they would be quite tired, so, in the end of the alley, there would be a small militia unit formed by those who couldn't shoot with a bow or were better as swordsman. The pirates that survive the first attack would then be cut down by the militia. When the archers reach the end of the alley and the brawl starts, they will come down from the rooftops through the buildings' fire escape stairs, draw their swords and join the fray.

The Venetians had been divided in two groups that were placed on each side of the alley. One was led by Link and the other one by Yunsung who, amazingly, was really good with the bow and arrow. Each group would be positioned on each side and both groups were divided into several other small groups that were led by other Venetians -so most of the seekers, being the most skilled warriors could be in the main fight and the Italians wouldn't be in so much danger of being killed or wounded- and were placed along the buildings so everybody didn't have to run that much.

Cassandra walked into the smith's workshop. She had been looking for Link all day long and was told that she could find him in here. She found him bent over a table, a small knife on one hand and a small, straight stick that was soon to be an arrow. She said hi to him and then sat down next to him, looking at him work, behind him, next to the wall, was a huge pile of soon to be arrows, next to it was a sack full of what she thought were the bird feathers and small mining cart full of metal arrow tips that were not going to be dripped in the deadly mix of poisons until they were completely assembled and the archers were ready to use them on Cervantes's pirates and nothing else.

After being dripped in the poison, the arrows would stay on their quivers and would stay there by orders of Link. Cassandra looked intently at Link's work, then at the craftsman himself, trying in vain to get a look into his eyes marveling at his concentration, his work, and other things. After some slight thinking, she finally came up with a small question that would help her get to know more about her belo… Link.

"So, it seems that you've been involved in something like this before, haven't you?" asked Cassandra to Link while he was making the arrows. He had made four-hundred until now -which would seem like much but was actually about three or four arrows per person, since the women and children from the two-hundred Venetians were obviously not going to fight- and was far from finishing.

"Yeah." He answered plainly without letting his attention drift from the task at hand.

"Really? Tell me about it" she asked exited about having an excuse to talk to him. She loved hearing about his land and the adventures he had lived in his short life. She knew that he needed to concentrate on the arrows, but she didn't care, she wanted to talk with him. But most importantly, she wanted him to pay attention to her.

But Link seemed to be ignoring her, since he kept working as if she wasn't even there. This made Cassandra really mad, even though she knew that he needed to keep working on the arrows. She wanted him to pay attention to her and she wanted it now. She made little noises and angry faces but he didn't seem to notice her, she could even swear that she felt her face go red like a tomato, but not a sign from Link.

A few minutes and ten arrows later, Link put down the knife that he was using to carve the arrows from the wood and looked at her. Their eyes met and Cassandra could see that sad look in them again which made her forget immediately about her anger and feel pity of sorts towards Link. It was then that she realized how painful it was for him to talk about his land, having left to save it without chance of coming back and enjoying what he had worked so hard to preserve.

He let out a sight, as if resigning himself to wound his heart once again. He started speaking softly, as if having a hard time recalling what had happened, "It was about five years ago, when I was in the land of Harkain on official businesses with my… sister, Zelda. The people of Harkain had just entered war with the land of Stigia and summoned us to negotiate an alliance with Hyrule.

The fun part started when a massive Stigian army decided to lay siege to the country's capital a day after we arrived. We knew that the city wouldn't last long, so we moved all the people inside the castle, where there was more than enough space for all of the town people and us -Hyrule's envoys- to live in, weather inside it on one of the many empty rooms, or on the dungeons –which were adapted for every-day living- or on the gardens, which would have been enough to fit them all in small tents anyway.

After meeting with the King and his military officers, me and Hyrule's commander in chief Darunia, who had come with us as part of the negotiations crew, managed to draw out a plan to take back the city and maybe even capture the Stigian army: during the night, a small military contingent and a militia unit formed by all the men in town would take an underground passage from the castle to the other side of the city. We all had nothing on but ragged pants and the rest of our bodies were covered in body paint and our faces bore the emblem of the Ice Dragon, the Stigian envoy of death and our chests had the inverted Tri-force, the international sign of doom in my land.

Since the town was being used as a temporary home by the Stigian army, we knew we weren't going to be detected. So, when our troops had arrived to the other side of the passage, we placed them in a two-line ring that spread all around the town, except where the castle was of course.

When we were all set, I shot a fiery arrow in the sky, indicating that we were ready. At that moment, every Harkanian soldier that was left inside the town came out from the castle-grounds as silently as they could, walking inside the houses and killing or capturing the Stigian soldiers within them. By the time the Stigians knew what was going on, half of their army had been killed in their beds or wounded badly at least.

The ones that managed to escape the Harkanians and make their way out of the city were met by a group of raging, rabid, drooling demons, which took them inside the castle as war prisoners and killed those who attacked them almost instantly.

And the best part is that not only did that little brawl practically ended the war, which gave us the Harkanian's permanent allegiance; and that we –me and the Hylian envoys- were never proven to have helped the Harkanians in the incident, therefore managing to maintain a good political relationship with Stigia.

"Wow, your people sure know their way around war and politics" Said Cassandra when Link was over.

"Well, warriors are well loved around my land… especially by beautiful woman." Said simply Link and returned to his work immediately after saying this, which intrigued the Athenian. Cassandra could have sworn that she saw Link's face twitch of surprise for a second, but if that ever happened, it was replaced immediately by his sad little smile that was only in his lips, since the and by the expressionless mask that was his face, the only sign of any feelings were those two emerald eyes that were, at least for Cassandra, more beautiful that a thousand green rupees combined. She could not help notice a strange mix of emotions when he said that, of course, many were natural -after all, he _did_ leave his land with close to zero chances of ever seeing it again just to save it- such as sadness, loneliness and nostalgia, but, the one she didn't expect was the most notorious one: love.

She tried to start a new conversation with Link, but he only talked back to her when asked a question and even then he did so as briefly as he could, using the same sad tone he had used right now. In the end, Cassandra got annoyed by Link's lack of interest towards her -or, more precisely, for giving more interest to his work than to her- and stormed out of the door, even though she knew that he _had_ to finish what he was doing and could afford no distractions.

The one thing that kept bugging her and stayed on the back of her mind was that Link had said that warriors were well loved in his land… especially by beautiful woman. Why had he said woman and not women? In the end she decided that she probably hadn't heard correctly. But if she mixed that with the love on his voice… did that mean that he…? No, she couldn't torture herself with those thoughts, at least not now with the battle so close.

* * *

That's it! How did you like it? Review and tell!

Well, on the next chapter we will see:

Cervantes arrives at Venice; they expect to meet a few hundred common pirates; nothing to worry about if they follow their plan, but most of Cervantes's troops have been lost in the multiple attacks to Italian cities and he has brought up from the depths of the underworld a sect of ancient demons to replace them. It will be a great, long, intense and bloody battle. I was originally going to put it in this chapter but it's so long that it needs a chap of its own. I've already written most of it and it takes nine pages in word with Times New Roman, 12 pt. (this one was a paragraph longer than six pages together with the quote in the end and my signature)

This was Jastul, saying: "cut yourselves a big slice from the pie of life!"

**_The greatest achievements of human kind have been the work of men and women who were not smart enough to realize that what they were trying to do was impossible._**


	7. The Battle of Venice

**Disclaimer**: I don't own any of the characters of Soul Calibur; I'm only using them to have some fun.

Thanks t**o all of you who **have** reviewed!**

(Reviews here)

Well, here's chapter 7, hope the following destruction satisfies everyone's blood-thirst. Enjoy and have yourselves a happy whatever holiday you celebrate (Of course, you're doomed to an eternity in Hell if you don't celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the only son of God… lol)

**The Battle of Venice:**

It was one o'clock, the day that Cervantes was scheduled to arrive according to the townspeople's calculations; they were all set on their places and ready for the battle.

"Are you ready Yunsung?" Link and Yunsung were standing next to each other on the side closest to the ocean to keep a watch for Cervantes' ship. They decided to talk so the others would feel less nervous at seeing them confident enough to chat. Link was dressed in his Goron tunic (which was more resistant than the Kokiri tunic and more effective for battle) with his Mirror Shield hanging on his back and the Great Fairy's Sword strapped safely across his left shoulder. Both of them had their bows in one hand and their quivers -full of the poisonous arrows that Link had made- on their backs, as did the rest of the archers with them.

Yunsung had his leather mail on and was wearing a mail shirt of some sort of black metal that looked as if it was simple fabric; it was originally Link's but, since the Korean needed it more for the battle that lay ahead, he let Yunsung have it for today.

"As ready as you are" he said with a smile, he and Link had patched things up during the time they had been together -having trained together for most of the time with the townspeople- and all animosity between them had been reduced to little more than a friendly rivalry to see which one of them was the best.

"Are you scared?" asked Link.

"No, actually I'm feeling quite confident" said Yunsung, his smile growing bigger.

"Well then, how about we have a little contest? Let's see who can defeat the most enemies, the only rule is that whenever you beat one you have to yell the number of enemies you have, so there won't be any cheating." said Link.

"You're going down Link" replied the Korean confidently. Then Link turned around to inspect the seas and he saw a massive ship coming, it was about the size of Maxi's ship, it was obviously Cervantes's ship, but what called Link's attention wasn't that, it was the fact that the ship was crowded with something that seemed statues of rubber, but when they got closer he saw with dread that those weren't sculptures, they were a horde of ancient demons that he knew better than he would like.

"Irch!" he spat the name with hatred.

"What?" asked Yunsung, he didn't had as good sight as Link, who was able to see more than a mile away on plain ground, but now that he was on a higher spot his view range was longer and he saw the ship even before it got close to the horizon.

"Irch! A demonic sect; they've been around in my land since the beginning of Hyrule and they've fought in the Hylian wars and I think that they have been summoned to this world before, you probably know them as the orcs (A/N: all hail and BOW DOWN TO master Tolkien! Oh great master, Lord of Fantasy and King of Literature, show us the path!)" He muttered to Yunsung trying not to be overheard by his men: the orcs weren't greatly skilled, but the sole image would make their 'soldiers' quail in fear, and the darkness of their hearts and the acts they were capable of in battle would break the people's morale.

"Crap!" yelled Yunsung "I've read about them in ancient scriptures! They may not be too strong but they're so ugly that these people will think they are some sort of high-level demon!" he replied in the same manner.

"Exactly! We still have some time: Cervantes will be here in about an hour. In the meanwhile we must let the others know so they can inform their troops and make them understand that the orcs aren't all that powerful" said Link worried.

"I'll go! About how many do you think they are?" said Yunsung nearing the ropes to go down, Link turned towards the horizon and counted.

"They're about five hundred strong, five fifty at the most! They shouldn't be a problem if we stick to the plan and we manage to keep our men from succumbing to fear!" said Link "Quick! You must let the others know, I'll tell the man in here"

"God bless that elven vision of yours!" said Yunsung, he unsheathed White Storm and passed the flat part over one of the ropes, he then grabbed the blade careful not to cut himself and slid down the rope like they were supposed to do during the battle.

"What's going on sir?" asked one of the archers to Link when he saw Yunsung leave.

"There's been a slight change on our situation, tell the others to gather in here" Link commanded.

"You know Link? We could use Ivy right now" said Yunsung with an eerie tone in his voice.

"Yeah well, it was our decision to send her to hunt down Nightmare" he replied remembering the last time he had seen her.

Flash Back

It had been three days since they had arrived at Venice. At this point all the seekers were gathered by themselves in a small building and were making plans for the fight with the Pirate

"Hey guys, when we defeat Cervantes, what about Nightmare? He would probably be miles away from us by that time" said Maxi curious.

"You're right, Maxi, what are we going to do to track him down in time? He might be too far away for Talim to sense him, and even if she manages to, it might be months before we catch up with him, in that time he might be able to restore the Soul Edge completely" said Xianghua worried.

They were thinking about it for a while until Yoshimitsu came up with an idea: "We can send one of us as a spy, he or she can pretend to want to be under his service, then, when Nightmare is sleeping, he or she can strike him down and destroy the Soul Edge, but the only problem is who."

"Well, Talim is the only one of us that can sense the Soul Edge Shards and is too young for such a dangerous mission so she stays. He would attack Kilik, Maxi, Yoshimitsu, Sophitia, Ivy and me on sight so neither of us can go" said Xianghua. "That leaves us with Raphael, Cassandra, Link and Yunsung."

"I will go" said Raphael, this was a very dangerous mission and the others were too young to die at the hands of the Azure Nightmare, besides, he noticed that the younger members of their little group were quickly all becoming good friends together with Talim and he wouldn't be able to send one of those good friends to what was probably certain death. He knew that Link was more than capable of realizing the task, but he emanated too much purity for one who would want to help the Soul Edge; there was also the fact that Talim had said Nightmare was heading towards France and he wanted to make sure his foster daughter Amy was doing okay.

"No" said Ivy "I will go" she said with a blank expression.

"But Ivy, he knows you! He knows you want to see the Soul Edge destroyed, He'll kill you right away!" said Kilik thinking Ivy had some sort of suicidal wish she hadn't told them about.

"No he won't, four years ago I came up with a similar plan and he didn't knew of my true intensions until the day you defeated him, I think I can manage to convince him otherwise, besides, I know almost exactly how to destroy the Soul Edge, which I doubt is something Raphael can say, no offense sweetie, but I've researched for years trying to find a way to do it, which makes me better qualified for the job"

"But how are you going to find him?" asked Xianghua.

"Valentine will lead me to him, just like it did last time" she said in a tone that marked the end of the discussion.

"Okay, then, when can you leave?" asked Yoshimitsu with regret and sadness, he obviously didn't approve this but accepted it because it was necessary.

"Tomorrow morning" replied Ivy sounding like one who has been condemned by her own will; she knew she probably wouldn't survive. Even if she did kill Nightmare and destroyed the sword, when the power that was contained within the sword was released it could cause an explosion of magic and energy so big that would burn her to the marrow.

The next morning she took her horse and departed.

End of Flash Back

When all the archers had gathered around Link, he started talking. "My dear friends, in the few days I've had the privilege of knowing you I've come to love you and respect you. (Sigh, pause) Just a few minutes ago, as I looked into the horizon, I saw the evil pirate's ship. But when I laid my eyes upon it I saw a terrible vision: the evil wielder of the sword has summoned demons to fight us"

Screams of alarm and desperation rise from the crowd and link tried to gain control quickly, since it wasn't really working, he decided to grab a Deku Nut and fling it to the ground. The small explosion and the blinding flash caused all of them to go silent and gave Link the chance to speak again.

"But don't worry! I have fought these demons before! They are the lesser, the weakest and the dumbest (laughs), less skilled beings that have or will ever be considered demons! They are the lesser Orcs! Those wretched beings that attack fair, defenseless women in the road, those dumb sprite-like things that lurk in the dark corridors of our mind, those things that fear light and all that is holly above all. Those same demons that are as skilled with the sword as a small child with a stick." By now, the militia had started to calm down and settle, some even grew confident that they could beat the orcs without much trouble. But Link knew that he still needed to say something quickly before the pirate arrived and the orcs had any chance to inflict any damage.

As he thought of what to say next, something rushed to his mind: the Battle of Delfalas, the battle where he led the Goron troops against the dark Ar-Mòrgûlia from the depths of the Mountain of Doom so he decided that if the speech had worked back then, it had worked when he gave the same speech to the Gerudos in the fight against the desert snakes, with the Zoras in the battle against the Octoroks, the Kokiris against the Moblins, and the Hylian/Sheikah resistance against Ganondorf's army, why wouldn't it now?

"Today, we are about to enter a battle that some of us may not survive; but remember, we have the advantage here! This is your land! You know it a thousand times better than they do! You have spent most of your life in here, is that not worth fighting for? Is that not worth dying for? As those evil beasts approach, or try to smite you down with their sword, remember that you fight for the forces of Light, for your family, for everything that is sacred to you, and remember that you fight for very existence!" the archers the exploded in a huge uproar and Link smiled and thought to himself 'Works every time. Although I've already used this speech to motivate every single army or race I've met… Mhm, it looks like I have to think of a new one for next time, which, with the path the Sisters have put me in, is probably going to be within the next six months or so.'

After that they waited in silence for Cervantes to arrive, they didn't have to wait long though, after about five minutes they saw a huge ship on the horizon looming up to them. Cervantes had arrived.

The air grew tense and everything went quiet, while on Cervantes's ship he urged his troops to another day of massacre and destruction and unleashed them into the harbor.

When everybody saw the orcs, they were terrified, but they remembered Link's words and decided to trust him in this one. They saw the orcs run wild in search of something to destroy, and quickly arrived at the alley that the seekers had prepared for them.

Inside, about one hundred yards deep inside the ally (A/N: this section of the alley had been intentionally been made so long for this part of the plan to work) there were set some dummies to lure them right in the trap. The orcs rushed inside the street and dispatched the dummies then went forward through the street to find another pray. When all the orcs where on the street Link asked Yunsung:

"Are you sure you want to go on with the contest, Yunsung?" asked Link when the orcs and the few remaining pirates started looking for new killings while at the same time giving the signal for the blockade to be set. The mechanisms were activated and a few tons of furniture fell in the entrance of the alley, effectively blocking it. The orcs quickly realized this was a trap and started to look for an exit, which was, of course, the opposite side of the alley, which was badly littered with furniture from the multiple Venetian houses to make it even harder for them to run. They would later realize, to their own horror, that the entire passage was arranged the same way.

"What? Are you scared?" asked Yunsung taunting the elf.

"No, it's just that…" and at this he aimed his bow down to the coming orcs and shot three arrows at the same time, the arrows hit one orc each and they fell dead "I'm already up 3-0" and with that he kept on shooting, Yunsung immediately reacted and started shooting with his own bow. Everyone else took Link's shot as an attack signal and started shooting.

The archers quickly followed the retreating orcs deep through the roof-tops while shooting at the best of their capacity. Finally, they got to the exterior of the city, which was little more than a clearing with some wooden houses here and there, and in the front and on both sides of the clearing, the seekers and the swordsmen awaited them forming a u-shaped line, The orcs tried to turn back, but by then, most of them had already exited the alley and the second blockade had been set up, leaving no possible way out but through the awaiting Venetians, who by then outnumbered them 2-1 counting the archers, which were descending at this moment. The orcs were utterly surrounded, with no way to go but towards the expecting enemy swords.

"Link! Aren't you coming?" yelled Yunsung before going down himself. The elf, however, didn't respond, he just drew his sword calmly in his left hand and the Long shot on the other on. Yunsung couldn't wait to see what Link was doing, so he just decided to go down and just turned around to say "Link! Hurry up!" and with that he went down one of the ropes.

Link put didn't pay attention to him and decided to go on with his personal game plan. He ran towards the edge of the building in which he was, when he reached the end of the roof he jumped off while aiming the Long Shoot towards a hut nearby and got ready.

The Long Shoot hit the hut's wooden roof when Link was about three feet from the ground and pulled him strongly without letting him touch the floor and brought him in a straight line across the battle ground and through the lines of the orcs, he extended his sword and let the strength of the Long Shoot do the job: by the time he got to the hut he had killed almost 20 orcs, then he jumped down with his sword pointing down and killed another one but they quickly started pilling up to him, he threw away the first ones with a spin attack "57!" he yelled and resumed his fighting, he could hear Yunsung saying a similar number from somewhere in the field, since they also counted the ones they had killed from the rooftops.

On the other side, the other seekers weren't having as much luck, Kilik for example, was surrounded by orcs, there was a small ring around him which was the reach of his strikes with Kali-Yuga, but the ring was getting smaller as the orcs came.

He started giving circular strikes, then, one of the orcs pushed him and he was forced to support his weight on Kali-Yuga, he then set it up perpendicular to the ground and held his staff as hard as he could, then he made a jump that left his body parallel to the ground and kicked the closest orc, supporting himself entirely on the staff, he then used the strength of the kick to push his legs towards another orc and kick him, he repeated this action several times and after a time it seemed as if he was running a circular path, using the orcs as his trail, after there were no orcs close enough to kick, he managed to push himself upwards and hand-stood on Kali-Yuga's tip, he aimed towards a group of incoming orcs and then let himself fall, his back was facing the ground, he then pushed his legs down and did a little flip, he landed strongly but softened the fall by bending his knees and canalized the full strength of the fall into his arms and brought down Kali-Yuga in a vertical strike, the only thing he remembers of that attack is the feeling of several skulls breaking under his staff and the sound of crushing bones and the screeches of pain from several orcs, then it was back to the long-ranged horizontal strikes.

Yunsung was fighting and killing every orc he met without much trouble "60,61,62…" he yelled, he was sure he will win the competition with Link, he saw another orc coming his way he ran up to it, when he was about five yards away from it, he jumped about six foot off the ground, he kicked the orc's head a few times and then, when his jump was about to end, he pushed himself down with a vertical slash from White Storm and sliced the orc cleanly in two, then another one came and he did something similar, except that this time, when he reached the orc, he stood on his shoulders and pushed himself up, when he came down concentrating all his weight on the orc's head, crushing his skull and column, then pushed himself up again and jumped over the heads of everyone, except of Kilik, who had managed to get himself in what seemed a vertical line from the ground to come down in a vertical strike with his staff.

The last thing he saw before he hit the ground was Raphael impaling three orcs that rushed him in a straight line in his rapier like a brocheta. He then did something similar to the spin attack that he had seen Link use on some occasions, landing in a circle of unfortunate orcs that had been stupid enough to come near his blade, he then stabbed another orc and yelled "Sixty-nine!" only to resume his fighting.

Xianghua, Sophitia and Cassandra had opted for fighting back to back, the alpha swords cut through the orcs's flesh and armor as if it was plain air while the omega shields blocked any attack, and sometimes even broke the orcs's scimitars as they clashed against each other, Krita-Yuga shined with a light of purity that burned the orcs whenever it touched them while Carakmaeg -which was the newly named sword Xianghua got after beating Nightmare and loosing Krita-Yuga and meant "piercing fang"- cut, impaled, and slashed everything that came within range.

Raphael stood with Maxi, while the Ryukyu pirate gave wild slashes with his nuchanks, (N/A: is this how you spell it?) and seemed to be getting good results. But not as good as Raphael though, who opted for keeping his calmed demeanor and sticking to his well-learned style rather than improvising, this led him to a beautiful and deadly dance which the orcs quickly learned to avoid, but the young Sorel master gave no rest to his enemies and showed a ruthlessness that could have helped him greatly in past times, like when he was considered too weak by his own family, who hired a group of mercenaries to kill him.

But if anyone was truly feared, it was the manji Yoshimitsu, who wore a white mask with three faces, a human face, a demon face, and a holy face together with green and blue dressings and his traditional armor (A/N: second suit), the orcs ran away from him because, due to his garments, powers, and merciless way of fighting, they thought that he was the fallen herald of the underworld -or Hellspawn- foretold to bring doom upon the armies of the unholy ones. They couldn't be more far away from truth.

After about short while, the Venetians seemed to have the upper hand, the orcs pulled back towards the city, but this proved it their destruction, the Venetians followed them quickly and the knowledge of the city and its alleys and streets gave them a great advantage, also, to avoid troubles, whenever they could, they pushed the orcs to the many rivers of the city to get them out of the way, which resulted in the drowning of many orcs due to the fact that they don't know how to swim and feared the water above mostly anything.

But then, Cervantes came, no one who stood up to him lasted more than five seconds, Soul Edge feasted on their souls and glowed with an aura of fear and darkness while the pirate threw the death ones to the water as if they were a useless cloth, where their blood flowed freely through the rivers of the fair city and tainted the air with death.

When Sophitia heard of the Pirate's coming she ran to look for him, the last time they had met, she had been able to defeat him, but she had been fighting for a long time and she didn't knew if she could beat him again, but she had to try.

"Well, well, if it's none other than Miss Sophitia Alexandra! We meet again." hissed Cervantes in an arrogant and hateful tone when he saw her.

"Cervantes! I don't know how you managed to come back from the grave, but I'll make that this time you die and stay death!" she said, hatred dripping from her every word.

"Oh, yeah? I don't think so, my child" said Cervantes, he then lifted Nirvana, (his short sword) and set the base of the hilt at the level of Sophitia's heart, she realized what he was about to do and jumped down, but it was too late, Nirvana's pistol-hilt shot a bullet which connected Sophitia in the shoulder and made her drop to her knees.

Link, who was fighting nearby, heard a loud explosion, he turned around and saw Cervantes, he was in front of a kneeling Sophitia, who was holding her shoulder, then Cervantes raised again the Nirvana, this time aiming to her brow, Link ran up to them while drawing his bow and jumped in between them.

"Step aside boy and I might spare your life!" yelled the pirate when he saw Link, he then noticed his ears and laughed "What's this? A Hylian? I guess you came from your land to stop the Soul Edge from unleashing that fool Ganondorf upon your pathetic kingdom! Well then, go back tell those idiots in your land that after I'm done here, you will be next!" he said with an amused tone and started laughing again.

"Quiet, you Spaniard scum!" Yelled Link while setting an arrow on his fairy bow "the Soul Edge serves no one but itself, Ganondorf has been as much master of it as you have been, you puppet!" he said with as much hatred in his voice as Sophitia.

"You think that your arrows can damage me? I am immortal! I'm this world's master and lord, and when I'm done with it, I'll move over to your pathetic land!" he yelled with disgust towards Link and his kind, Link only pulled the arrow and aimed at Cervantes's heart, or at least to the place where it should be. "You do think you can harm me with your little toys, boy? Well then, give me your best shot" he said at the edge of laughter while extending his arms, leaving himself open for any attack.

A confident smile appeared on Link's face and he said softly "You asked for it" he then pulled the string even more and charged it with all the holy energy he could and shot it, the mark on his hand shining like golden fire, Cervantes's eyes grew wide in fear when he felt the pure energy emanating from the arrow approach him, he knew it was too late to duck, so he tried to cover himself, but to no avail, the Arrow of Light pierced his heart and passed cleanly through his body, he fell to his knees while holding his chest.

"What kind of magic is this?" he said gasped in pain.

"That's the magic of my pathetic kingdom, Cervantes!" said Link setting another arrow on his bow, he came closer to Cervantes and aimed the arrow to his brow "And when you get there, tell those fools in hell that after I'm done here and in Hyrule, they'll be next." He reloaded his bow and pulled the string, aiming at the middle of the downed pirate's forehead, he started charging his energy on it, but then:

"WATCH OUT LINK!" yelled Sophitia and then fainted of the pain her wound was causing her, Link turned around and saw five orcs approaching him with their swords up, he took two of them down with his charged arrow and they disappeared in a flash of holy light, then he quickly drew his sword and started fighting the other three, it took him a little while but he managed to defeat them without too much trouble.

When he turned around to face the undead pirate he was gone, he ordered a nearby Venetian to take care of the Athenian and rushed to finish Cervantes off, by the time he reached the docks he was too late, Cervantes's ship was sailing away, too far for the Long Shoot to reach it and, even though it was still on his firing range, Cervantes was nowhere to be seen on the ship's deck, he probably went inside to heal his wounds.

Feeling frustrated, Link returned to where he had left Sophitia, all the orcs had been killed and the cleaning work had started, they told him that they had taken Sophitia to a nearby house, where a doctor who had stayed lived and was treating her wounds, he decided to first find the others and tell them what had happened.

The first one he found was Yunsung, when he found him, he found striking down the last orc, he was covered in both orc blood and his own, he had many scratches and bruises, but he looked triumphant, like a soldier who had won the greatest battle of his life; the demon he had taken down was face-up on the ground with Yunsung's sword on his chest while giving the last spasms before his death.

"Looks like we won't have to worry about Cervantes for a long time" he said when Link had told him what happened, he then put one foot on the hilt of his sword digging it deeper into the orc, which started to convulsion harder, then he sat down on the orc so it would stop moving, also, he was tired and felt like sitting down.

"I suppose" said Link with a triumphant smile.

"So, how many did you killed?" asked Yunsung curious. "And remember, you didn't kill Cervantes so it doesn't count"

"I killed148" said Link confident he would win, but to his surprise, Yunsung started laughing. "What's so funny?" asked Link taken aback by the Korean's laugh.

"I won! By one! I killed 149" he said joyful and kept laughing, especially after he saw the mix of surprise and anger in Link's face, but the anger then turned to happiness and he said:

"No you haven't! We've tied!" he said taking his bow and arrows and aiming towards where Yunsung was sitting.

"WHAT! If you kill me you will loose anyways! We said enemies so it won't count, and killing the opponent is cheating!" he said trying to find a way to stop Link from shooting at him.

"That's not what I was planning, Hong" And with that he shot, the arrow hit the orc in between his eye and it stopped moving, it was death. "But that makes my score 149, Yunsung!" he said with a sarcastic smile.

"WHAT! That doesn't count! Defeated it!" said Yunsung outraged.

"But I finished it" replied Link.

"But it has my sword on it!" the Korean yelled, feeling pretty pissed at the elf.

"And it has my arrow on him" countered Link confidently, the debate went like this for a few hours, even after they had found the others and when they were having dinner at the inn that night, but in the end, they agreed that it had been Link's killing and that it was a tie, although Yunsung still felt like he had been tricked and that Link had cheated.

That night there was a great feast in the city, they had been able to defend themselves from the attack and the Immortal Pirate had been greatly injured, also after the battle, some Soul Edge shards had fallen off the pirate's body, which they quickly recovered.

The next day, they departed, the Italians made a lot of gifts to the seekers, a great deal of provisions for their journey like dried fruits and salted meat, they were also given new horses, these were stronger and faster, and could carry more, they also gave Yunsung a metallic breast plate in change for his leather mail, which had been utterly ruined during the battle, and a sheath for Krita-Yuga, Xianghua's newly found sword; they were also offered many jewels and riches but they wouldn't take them, they left the city of Venice at noon and rode north-westwards, to where Ivy had headed, and where Talim said Soul Edge was.


	8. To My Readers

This is just a note to my readers to let you know that I'm going to put the story on hold for indefinite time. If you want to know what has led me to this decision, here are my reasons:

**1)**School's been pretty hard lately and I need some time to get my stuff together

**2)**I don't really feel inspired to write anymore. I do have the next three chapters written out, but they need major editing and I don't really have the time or ideas for that

**3)**Lack of support. If you like this story and are angry at me for putting it on hold, well you should've thought of that when you read it and just didn't review. If you think I should continue with this story, well, let me know, but that won't change the fact that you weren't really there when your support was asked (sorry for sounding a little too dramatic).So, if you think an angry note will put me back into writing this, you're wrong. I won't work on this story until I have lots of free time, nothing else to do, and the right state of mind.  
And if you _did_ review, well, I'm sorry for that, but the small minorities rarely make a difference.

**4)**I'm going to start writing another story which is flowing much easier for me, it's called Harry Potter and the final quest and you're more than welcome to check it out.

**So, thanks to all of you who SHOWED your support and sorry to disappoint you.**

**Special thanks to:  
****-Crimson-88  
****-hibeki  
****-Believer in the cross  
****-Shadow Rave  
****-Esperanza Fuega**

I wish you all a good life and may our paths cross again. Hopefully I will pick up on this story later and hopefully people will respond better to it.

_**-Jastul  
Life is a Dream**_


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